The death and life of the miners' clubs: The twilight of a Scottish institution

It seemed that Mrs Thatcher wasn’t content merely with destroying the mining industry, she wanted also to dismantle the lives of the workers and their families.

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And so it was left to the miners' clubs to maintain social cohesion and provide what sustenance they could. Now, almost 40 years later, the lights are beginning to go out on these sturdy community hubs too. Across West Lothian, where the shale bings commemorate the pits which maintained the fabric of these communities the lights the clubs are falling victim to new capitalist predations.

Jim Timmins, an ex-miner and former committee member of Fauldhouse Miners and Welfare Club, said: “Nearly every village in West Lothian had a miners' club, but Fauldhouse and Loganlea are the only two left. It’s important that we keep them open, as there’s really not much else around where people can socialise together and have a decent night out.”

The effects of the 1984/85 strike reaped a bitter harvest in these places. As in those other towns and villages where Coal was King, large parts of West Lothian occupy those places at the wrong end of the indexes measuring multiple deprivation. In 1984, the both the miners' clubs rallied to provide food parcels for families who were worst affected. Mr Timmins recalls: “There were also food vouchers issued weekly and on most days local people would hand in food parcels. It was a difficult time.

Fauldhouse Miners Welfare Social Club in West Lothian. Picture: Gordon Terris (Image: free)

“Our club has to keep prices low and we’re known as one of the cheapest places around here. Most of the ex-miners from the strike have gone now and so the current committee are working hard to attract younger members and to re-connect them to their own social history.”

Neil Findlay, the former Labour MSP for this area and Tommy Kane, who’s sprung from several generations of miners, take me on a guided tour of the two clubs. The Polkemmet Pit is long gone, but the indomitable spirit that bound the communities which worked there lives on in Fauldhouse, and Loganlea.

Mr Findlay led the successful campaign to secure pardons for miners convicted of criminal behaviour during the 1984 strike. Scottish miners were disproportionately punished compared to the rest of the UK. More than 500 were arrested and 200 were sacked by the Coal Board, representing 30% of the UK total. Cabinet papers from the time have since confirmed the miners’ long-held belief that aggressive policing of the strike was politically-motivated.

Mr Findlay said: “Many of the convictions arose from trumped-up charges. People lost their redundancy and were black-listed. Many of them never recovered and it was left to the miners' clubs to help them pick up the pieces.”

Today, the local miners' clubs are still providing support for this community. Fauldhouse and Loganlea are little towns that you’ll never see unless you have actual cause to be here. Like many others across Scotland’s central belt, they've been kettled by motorways, known to the rest of Scotland by the feats of its myriad (and formidable) Junior and amateur football teams.

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Fauldhouse is a handsome place bristling with a fierce community pride. Much of this is rooted in the miners' clubs, where they still sell whisky in quarter gills and the beer £3.40 is a pint. Up the road at the Loganea club it’s £3.60. John McAllion, the former Labour grandee once described this place as “a little oasis of socialism”.

In previous years it hosted political events and fundraisers for Cuba Solidarity, the Liverpool dockers and many trade union events and, during the 2014 referendum on independence, a sold-out public debate. Tony Benn has been here too. Tommy Kane said: “Clubs like Loganlea provide affordable entertainment, drinks and food at a time when nights out in Glasgow or Edinburgh for many people here are far too expensive.

“During the mining era it provided several outdoors activities, including a fishing and angling club. Men who had worked all week underground thirsted for anything that brought them prolonged spells of fresh air. Fauldhouse had a brass band and a boxing club too. This club helped launch the careers of Lewis Capaldi and Susan Boyle.”

In Fauldhouse, the miners' club also helped maintain what might then have been described as “good order and decorum” around the town. “If you were found to have stepped out of line at a social event you were up before the committee and forced to do the walk of shame and either admonished or barred,” said Mr Kane. “Everyone got to know about it, so it had quite an effect on maintaining discipline.”

Neil Findlay said: "This was the place to go for weddings, 21st birthdays, retirements and funerals."

Fauldhouse Miners Welfare Social Club in West Lothian. Picture: Gordon Terris (Image: free)

He still has the receipt for the round of drinks his father paid for all the guests at the start of his sister’s wedding reception: £130 for 250 drinks. All the local community groups like the pensioners and football clubs received regular donations.

In the main function suite at Fauldhouse a mural stretches from one side of the room to another. It was painted in 1977 by Tommy Shelley, a local artist who worked at British Leyland’s Bathgate plant. It depicts two miners bent almost double and sleek with sweat in their semmits and helmets. They’re pushing a carriage laden with coal being pulled by a pack horse.

It’s a stunning piece of work that captures the sheer toil and hard labour of the miner as well as the dangers that accompanied working in such a way hundreds of feet under the ground.

In Neil Findlay’s 2021 book, If You Don’t Run They Can’t Chase You, he includes a chapter on one of his working class heroes, a former miner called Alex Bennett who was tasked with establishing a hardship fund for Lothian families during the strike.

Mr Bennett starkly portrays the scale of the misery being visited on many miners. “I had to go down to Niddrie Mill to meet one of our guys who was struggling. His neighbour had phoned me to raise her concerns. He lived on his own and all he had left in the house was a chair, a table and a phone – he had sold everything else.

“He had even sold his coal to the local coalman. I went to the social work department in Craigmillar. They were sympathetic but were stopped from helping by what was then a Tory council. We took the man to the shops and bought him food and soap and essentials. He really was in a terrible state.”

Fauldhouse Miners Welfare Social Club in West Lothian. Picture: Gordon Terris (Image: free)

Four miles over a single track road takes us to Loganlea Miners' Social Club where vice-president Marc Donoghue greets us. There’s an air of optimism about these smart premises. A younger committee, some of them the descendants of the men who worked the pits, have put this place on a surer footing following Covid and the onset of the cost of living crisis.

Like Fauldhouse, this place provides support, help and solidarity to any and all who might require it. The amount of money raised for charitable causes and the support provided is phenomenal. No one gets left out. He’s particularly proud of the sensory room being kitted out for autistic children. The drinks prices, the lounges and a first-class bill of entertainment are now attracting people from neighbouring villages like Stoneyburn and beyond where the pubs are shutting down.

Loganlea is known locally for its strong socialist tradition, there are classes on Marxism that were held here in the 1970s. Yet, you’re reminded of a verse from an older book that describes what the miners' clubs do for these communities.

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you visited me.”