Long Live The Hill Transcript (Scotland: A Scottish History Podcast)
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Scotland - A Scottish History Podcast
Episode 32 - Long Live The Hill
MICHAEL PARK: It is 1900. It is 3pm. Some rainy Saturday on some windswept hill. It could be anywhere in the country but it isn’t. This is The Hill.
Among the little cottages and the middens, here at the very edge of the Ayrshire coalfield two little villages sit on the hillside. Lethanhill and Burnfootside are yards apart. For the people who live there, it’s the same.
Your team play on the fitba park at Lethanhill. It’s probably closer to your house than some of the cottages in Lethanhill.
This is the first time that Benquhat Heatherbell have been to your home ground at Primrose Park since that rammy at Rugby Park in the final of the Ayrshire Junior Cup last season but all that seems to have been put to bed, aside from in the evil eye you’re getting from one of their half backs.
You’re pretty sure he had more teeth the last time you saw him.
Time always stands still before a big game. You have time to look around at the faces in the crowd - it’s a helluva big crowd, men and women looking on with pride as you take to the pitch.
Your mum and dad are there. Mum looking proud and Dad looking like steam’s about to start shooting out of his ears like the wee puffer that comes up and down the line to move the crudely processed pig iron, as he gives the Benwhat players whatfor.
Nothing ever changes.
You look round at your teammates. Ten of your best mates all dressed in gleaming white kits. Getting them looking like that after playing on the junior parks of the coalfields every weekend was a labour of love for your mother. Every Monday she’d work all day in the steamie with all the other players’ maws bringing white shirts as pure as driven snow back from the brink of destruction.
She wouldn’t have her boy turning out looking like he’d just come up out the pit.
You looked like that every other day.
The boys are ready. No first names on the field. Wee Billy and big Jim are McDowall and Highet. They exist out of time, out of place for 90 minutes. No identities beyond the men you trust most in the world.
The pride of the Hill.
The ball sits under your foot and as you roll it around under the tackety boot that you think is state of the art, you feel the weight of it. The heavy, strapped leather, the lacing to keep the inflated ball in that hurts like hell when you go up for a header on a cold day.
There’s the weight of expectation too, as you watch the referee walk out to the middle of the pitch, his smart blazer, whistle and watch out of place against the surroundings. Every Saturday: best dressed men in The Hill.
Suddenly everything comes back into sharp focus.
The white of your kit. The blue of theirs. The roar of the crowd.
This is Scotland, a podcast about history and where we made it. I’m Michael Park.
Football is your pride. These tiny villages, The Hill as you call them are your passion, your home, your people. You and your mates have dragged the Primrose up and taken them to a final. Among the Heatherbells, the Doons, the Mountaineers, the Cherrypickers, the Shawbanks, the Meadows... and all of the others the Primrose are a name.
Sure you didn’t win the final, the other lot won that 2-1 but it could have been worse - you went in at half time 2-0 down in front of 400 people.
NEWSPAPER REPORT: The Ayrshire Junior Final Tie
This event came off at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock on Saturday, and, considering the big attraction at Ayr the same afternoon, the attendance of spectators was very gratifying - over £15 being realised out of the proceedings, though this sum is less than last season.
Last year the finalists for this trophy were Irvine Meadow Eleven and Newmilns - the former winning by four goals to nil; but on Saturday the contending teams were new aspirants, vis-a-vis, Benwhat and Burnfoothill.
It was generally expected that the game would have a close issue, and in this respect at least, few were disappointed. But when contrasted with the final of the previous season, the exposition given by the respective sides was somewhat inferior.
During the first half Benwhat played with the assistance of a strong wind, and had a monopoly of the play during that stage. Burnfoothill, however, offered a good defence, and when a halt was called Benwhat had only secured a lead of two goals against nil for their opponents.
The change of ends now saw Burnfoothill pretty much in evidence - in fact play was conducted on somewhat similar lines to the first half, only Burnfoothill were the main aggressors. They, however, scored but on one occasion and Benwhat were thus hailed junior champions of the Shire by the narrow margin of two goals to one.
The game was to the rough side, and for this the referee was to blame, having allowed the players too much rope. At the close of the game, which was good value for a draw, several of the players quarrelled, and a pugilistic display closed the day’s proceedings.
The teams were: Benwhat - Tait, Torbet, Hunter, Hannah, McHattie, Watt, McCreadie, Parker, Fisher, Murray and McCall. Burnfoothill - Kirk, Young, Hutchison, Kelly, Lunnie, English, Highest, McDowall, Watt, Dougan, and Ballantine.
MICHAEL PARK: You were definitely one of the players quarrelling at the end of the game. Whether you were one of the men engaged in a pugilistic display… that was between you and the big man with no front teeth.
Rivalries between companies, between villages, between communities and individuals were lived out on the fitba pitch. Your best eleven going up against their best eleven.
A pure, unsurpassed expression of bragging rights between people who have more to connect them than separate them.
Your mine might have produced iron ore. Their mine might have brought up coal. Maybe they worked in the furnaces at the works or hauled ore down the hills on the Dalmellington railway.
Football was pride. It was your way to show what your community were all about.
On the football pitch… all bets were off.
Off the football pitch you probably lived much the same lives in much the same wee houses.
Your livelihood, your home, your life was at the whim of the company that built your row. Your kids’ school, the church you went to on Sunday, the pub you enjoyed a foaming pint of ale in after the football finished.
You lived at the whim of whatever came out of the ground. Iron was the lifeblood of the community and it kept everything running. As long as the ironworks down the hill at Dunaskin had pig iron to process, you’d have your life as you always knew it.
A life that saw sheep graze among the miners’ rows, the weans running about barefoot whenever they weren’t at the wee school which sat at the head of the village. The train bringing supplies in every week, and the train taking ironstone out of the pits which were dug into every available bit of the hill, even right in the centre of the village.
But there would come a day.
There would come a time.
In 1913 the Ayrshire Miners Union published a report into conditions in the Ayrshire Miners’ Rows. Its report on The Hill said:
REPORT: “The lack of conveniences at this large village is disgraceful, and not worthy of such an important Company as the Dalmellington Iron Co., Ltd. The people in every row gave evidence of being able to appreciate better conditions. We trust better conditions will be given to them.”
MICHAEL PARK: The Ironworks down the hill closed in 1921. They were clapped out, the workers were in need of new equipment and better conditions. They went on strike and that was it.
Gone.
Well until it was made into a brickworks a few years later.
By the 1930s all the miners rows in the surrounding areas, but especially on The Hill were struggling and were in dire need of renovation as the last vestiges of the old way of mining continued its slow decline.
When the second world war ended, the writing was on the wall for The Hill.
In 1954 the remaining residents from the rows were rehomed in new estates being built in Patna, just down the hill. The last to go was the village’s oldest resident, Rab Bryce. He eventually moved off the hill - but only under protest.
The school stayed open for a while as the last few buildings untouched by demolition decayed in front of them.
Burnfoothill was given over to open cast mining and the entire village is now a series of giant holes in the ground. Lethanhill was planted with trees and, if you wander through the plantation, you can still see the odd wall poking out of the undergrowth.
Venture further up the wee road from Patna, and you’ll find a TV transmission tower, piping signals into homes across the south west.
In its shadow lies a stone, on which painted in stark black letters with a white outline are two dates and four words.
1851 - 1954. Long Live The Hill.
CREDITS
You’ve been listening to Scotland, it was written and produced by me, Michael Park and is a production of Be Quiet Media.
Thank you to Brian McColl of the Scottish Football Historical Archive for helping us find out more about Burnfoothill Primrose.
Additional voices for this episode were by Chris Moriarty.
The music for every episode of Scotland is by the human substitution cipher, Mitch Bain, you can check out more of his work at mitchbain.bequiet.media
Jamie Mowat does stunning illustrations for us which you can see in our episode art. See more and buy prints at tidlin - t i d l i n - .com.
Scotland is supported by Chris Lingwood and listeners like you on Patreon. Get involved and chuck us a couple of bucks at: patreon.com/scotlandhistorypodcast
You can find out more about the show on our website, thisisscotland.co and on twitter, facebook and instagram by searching Scotland - Scottish History Podcast.
Thanks for listening, we’ll see you next time.