Markham 1973

Markham 1973

Photo courtesy of dun.can on Flickr, taken in 1993

My poem is dedicated to the men who died and were seriously injured in the disaster at Markham Colliery in Derbyshire on July 30th 1973. They included Joseph (Joe) Birkin, who lived in our village and whose twin daughters Lynn and Sadie were regulars at our chapel and were only 21 when their dad died.

All was quiet in the village
It was an English summer's day
Not hot, not cold, might rain, might not
Children at their play

The six week holidays had come
No teachers to obey
Free to roam the streets and fields
On that English summer's day

The rain had freshened all the scents
Flowers, grass and soil
But underneath the land so green
Men were at their toil

As the birds sang in the dawn
A braking rod gave way
Twenty nine colliers dropped down the shaft
On that English summer's day

No larks were singing in that mine
No nightingale nor jay
Just screams and blood and death and fear
On that English summer's day

The breeze was wafting wheat and grass
Last chance to cut the hay
Eighteen brave men went in that pit
And never came away

Forty years and more have passed
It seems like yesterday
When families' lives were torn apart
On that English summer's day


The inquiry, at which my dad was a witness as part of the investigating team, produced its report that lays out the details of the incident and its cause in cold, legal and exact language. Of course, this is to be expected but nonetheless it makes interesting reading for an engineer. As always in disasters, it seems, there were mistakes that could have prevented or mitigated against the terrible injuries and deaths that resulted from the fatigue failure of a metal braking rod. As it turns out, almost my entire working life had been spent with a company whose core products and skills are based on software that helps to predict and prevent fatigue of components used in a range of engineering applications. It was never intentional on my part to relate my work to this incident and I only discovered the full extent of the problem that led to the failure when I recently found the report online and read it in detail. However, my dad did find the advert for the job and pointed me to it - was he aware of what the company did? I'll never know now as he has gone and I never kept a copy of the advert.

Some of the things he told me about the accident were truly terrible and are quite distressing. I don't know how the families coped with it.

Finally in 2013 a memorial was installed on the Markham Vale industrial estate that now sits on the site of the former colliery. It commemorates those who died in this disaster and in two prior disasters, particularly an explosion in 1938 that killed 79 and will stretch across the fields up to the village of Duckmanton, which was particularly devastated by the 1938 disaster, with a figure for each miner killed.



The Dead


Birkin, Joseph , aged 60, Face Worker
Briggs, Clarence , aged 52, Deputy
Brocklehurst, Joseph William , aged 58, Deputy
Brooks, Clifford , aged 58, Deputy
Chapman, Henry , aged 48, Deputy
Cooper, Gordon Richard , aged 30, Development Worker
Eyre, George, aged 60, Gearhead Attendant
Kilroy, Michael , aged 53, Development Worker
Kiminsky, Jan , aged 58, Development Worker
Plewinsky, Lucjam , aged 59, General Worker
Reddish, Frederick , aged 53, Development Worker
Rodgers, Wilfred , aged 59, Face Worker
Sissons, Charles Leonard, aged 43, Road Repairer
Stone, Frank , aged 53, Road Repairer
Turner, Charles Richard , aged 60, Deputy
Tyler, Albert , aged 64, Back Repairer
White, Alfred , aged 57, Deputy
Yates, William, aged 62, Development Worker

The Injured
Brothwell, Dennis; aged 44, Development Worker
Cowley,Frank; aged 43, Development Worker
Cowley, Malcolm Joseph; aged 29, Development Worker
Maxwell, John; aged 35, Reserve Face Worker (injured in the rescue attempt)
Reddish, James; aged 25, Development Worker
Richardson, Graham; aged 34, Heavy Supplies Worker
Stone, George Denis; aged 41, Overman
Taylor, Harry; aged 47, Development Worker
Thornley, Terence; aged 18, Face Trainee
Vaughan, Terence Graham; aged 38 Development Worker
Watson, William Henry; aged 47, Face Worker
Wrobels, Richard; aged 44, Face Worker

We were just one of many families who were deeply affected by that awful tragedy and the memories of that day and the weeks that followed are still painful. “My sister and I were 21 years old in 1973 so were of an age to clearly recall everything that happened

Read more at: http://www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk/news/markham-pit-the-day-a-community-fell-silent-1-5891510

Men were lying tangled together with shattered legs. I remember one young lad screaming in pain. He was given morphine but was still screaming

Read more at: http://www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk/news/markham-pit-memorial-for-miners-who-lost-their-lives-with-slideshow-1-5914370

“Men were lying tangled together with shattered legs. I remember one young lad screaming in pain. He was given morphine but was still screaming.”

Read more at: http://www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk/news/markham-pit-memorial-for-miners-who-lost-their-lives-with-slideshow-1-5914370