1985: the end of Frances Colliery and Seafield in crisis with strike and underground challenges

It was 40 years ago this month that serious underground heating issues took Seafield Colliery to the brink, and led to the closure announcement of Frances with the loss of 700 jobs.

A region already in the grip of the miners strike faced major challenges as 1985 dawned, and the headlines made for grim reading over the opening few months.

Things were changing with some miners going back to work, and the National Coal Board (NCB) turning up the heat with full page adverts in the Fife Free Press which made a promise to men “who have given enough of your time and cash to the strike and want to get back to work” that their wage packet for January 7 could total £140. The advert contained a coupon to cut out and send in confidence to the board.

It claimed numbers going back to work had risen to 74. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said it was 56.

The adverts were updated a few weeks later as the pressure continued in what were to be the final months of a year-long strike. Fife Regional Council pledged £250,000 support to miners’ families with the pledge from Councillor Robert Gough that “there will not be a bairn in Fife who will have an empty belly.”

That sparked a political backlash among opposition parties who argued the decision showed “deliberately partisan support of an industrial dispute has brought this region into disrepute.” While councillors argued, picket lines stood firm at Seafield and Frances, with secondary pickets at Tullis Russell papermill, Methil Power Station and Westfield Opencast, with a watchful eye being kept on Perth Docks,

But the biggest problem was happening underground at Seafield. Only days after bringing up, and marketing the first coal since the strike began, it lost its main production face as mines rescue teams battled smoke filled roadways at the main L11 face.

The serious heating issue saw specialist equipment dispatched to the colliery, but it was an uphill battle for the teams as they sought to seal off the whole face - and if it shut, then 350 jobs would be lost.

It was crisis after crisis at Seafield, and the heating problem also put Frances at real risk.

But the worst was yet to come. At the start of February, a stark 11-word announcement ended the life of the oldest pit in Scotland.

“Then production unit at Frances Colliery will cease as from today,” a hastily convened Sunday press conference was told. It shattered fading hopes that the Dysart pit could be saved from the ravages of the worst underground ‘heating’ in its history.

The statement from Albert Wheeler, Scottish director of the NCB, came as a sickening blow to the miners - both working and striking - as well as the rescue teams and the board’s scientists who had had waged a two week battle to contain the heating over 3000 feet below the surface.

Frances had suffered several heatings during the course of the strike and when the NUM Liaison Committee first received a request for help in mid January it came as no surprise. They supply 18 men per shift requested by the NCB.

Over the weekend it became clear that there were insufficient men to deal with the heating and the NUM agreed to a total of 120 going down to help

On the Monday the hearing, which scientists were unable to pinpoint, flared and the pit was suddenly under serious threat.

For the 500 miners who no longer had a job to return to when the strike was over, and their families, the news brought total despair - but there was more to come.

Three days later, time also ran out at Seafield’s main colliery face where 300 jobs were lost. L01 face was the centre of an “appalling conditions” and lost amid a bitter war of words between the NCB and NUM.

The death knell for Scotland’s oldest pit ends more than a century of proud tradition digging for coal at the Dubbie. Opened in 1874, Frances survived through the bleak years which saw the close knit mining community shrink as colliery after colliery across Fife died. The names are now just memories - Michael, Lochhead, Glencraig, Kinglassie, Minto and May, and the white elephant, Rothes.

Seafield was the bright new hope of the industry. Preparatory work started in 1954 with the sinking of two shafts to get to the estimated 60 million tons of reserves and production began a decade later. Production record were quickly established and in 1968 Seafield joined the million ton club with more than that tonnage produced in just 12 months.

While Seafield was plagued with problems, so too was Frances. It was prone to combustion and was always a wet pit which suffered from numerous underground fires. Fears for its future first emerged in 1970s when the NCB announced a scheme to tap into the reserves at Michael, marooned under the Forth. The plan was to drive roadways from Seafield and by-pass Frances which would have phased out the colliery over a few years with the loss of 700 jobs.

A reprieve came when the board decided that Frances be allowed to develop sections which were to be abandoned under the original proposals. The old and the new were finally linked in the 1970s to form Scotland’s biggest pit complex

Frances was left with just one production face, and workforce shrunk from 1200 to 700. Ironically, the week before the strike started in March 1984 its future actually looked assured with Seafield heading into the black for the first time in its history. By 1988 its gates had closed for the last time.

Many would argue the town has never fully recovered from the loss of jobs and the impact on its communities.