Fife Ghosts 3 - by our Special Correspondent.
The Phantom of the Mine.
From the ghost section of Minto Colliery brave men fled in terror.
This is the tale of Fife's most terrifying ghost. It is a ghost two hundred fathoms under the earth. It has shattered the nerves of strong me, causing them months of insomnia. It heralds its visitations with a rending, tearing thunder.
I first heard of the ghost section of the Minto Colliery in West Fife from a haggard-looking man whom I met when walking through one of the mining towns in the early morning. He wanted change to work a cigarette machine. He was rather old, with tired, sunken eyes and a weary, drawn face. I asked him what he was doing out of bed at that hour. He told me he had not slept a wink at night for 18 mongths. "I worked in the ghost section," he said.
He told me he had been through the worst barrages in the Great War without turning a hair. But the ghost section shattered his nerves. "I have found myself running panic-stricken from the section, and clinging to the wall, panting, with my knees absolutely knocking together, wondering whether I could dare to go back or not." Finally his nerves gave way. He had not worked for 18 months. He envied the health of every person he saw. He wondered whether he would eventually go mad from want of sleep.
The full story of the ghost section was afterwards related to me by Mr James Suttie, whose picture you see here. Mr Suttie was for five years the contractor in charge of the ghost section. It is now closed.
Minto Colliery is situated between Bowhill and Lochgelly and the section lies about a mile from the pit bottom. It is 120 yards in length, comprising a winding "road." Working at the "face," the miners knelt under a roof about four and a half feet high. The peculiarity of the section was that the roof above it was sandstone for several fathoms. Herein lay the ghost. Suddenly, without warning, the roof would begin to roar. The roaring was far worse than thunder. Everyone who has worked in the ghost section speaks in awed tones of the tearing, rending thunder of the roof, which went on in diabolical peals sometimes for over an hour. In accompaniment to the terrifying noise, the roof would tear apart and press down with overwhelming force. Props would be driven into the "pavement" or ground.
Yet, curiously enough, the accident rate in the ghost section was not higher than elsewhere. This was due to an uncanny second sight which the miners who worked in it experienced. Mr Suttie told me that while he and his 16 men were at work all along the section they would suddenly realise that the thunder was going to begin. There was no visible warning, no murmuring or movement. They simply knew that in a second's time the roof would be roaring and tearing and heaving. With one accord they crawled feverishly into the bigger road without, and no sooner had they scrambled to their feet than the terrifying noise had begun.
The lights all went out. In darkness terror-stricken men rushed hither and thither to safety. Many ran into each other in the dark in their blind efforts to get away from the section. And, while I tell you this, you must remember that there is no braver class of men than the miners in the country. In all other circumstances they do not flinch from danger. It is their everyday companion. But the ghost section, just at this terrifying stage when the lights black out and the narrow underground roadway is a roaring, heaving, rending mass, struck panic into the hearts of the bravest men.
Once out of the section, the men waited until the thunder had ceased. Usually they were scattered, and the wait was often an anxious one, for one band of men was quite unaware what had happened to another. When the thunder ceased the men made their way back to the ghost section. This alone proved their courage. They would find the props which had held up the roof driven right through the pavement. These props, usually pillars of wood, made specially for the ghost section, were frequently driven down until a length of only two feet was visible, compared with their previous height of four and a half feet. The roof had settled on top of them after driving them down this distance.
The work of clearing up was then begun, and afterwards the normal work of filling the pan runs resumed. Although eight of his men stuck with Mr Suttie throughout his five years in the ghost section, the other half was continually chopping and changing. He told me of some men who had stayed only one shift, and refused to come back.
Dundee Evening Telegraph, Friday 3rd May 1935
