Mr Henderson disusses working in the mines and friends and family who were affected by the war

Could you give me your name and when you were born?
Alec Henderson. Born 5 - 3 - 20.

So that would make you sort of about nineteen when war started?
1939
No. She is asking your age when the war started.
19

So you were sort of 19. So what were you doing at the time war started?
I was in the pits at the time. Yes that's correct. And before the war started -1938, I received word to attend Kirkcaldy for a medical for the forces. Well whenever I entered and asked where I worked in the pits, I was exempt and sent away, we need you in the coal mines. Right. And eh. I worked in the pits actually since the age of 16 - 1936 till aboot 1943, I had to leave then because of an ear infection and eh, and I was sent over to Edinburgh to the Royal Infirmary. For an ear operation, and lost the hearing completely in that ear. So I didn't go back to the pits for 2 or 3 year until after I was married. And went back again.

Did anything change in the pits after the war or was it just exactly the same? You know, did they have to increase coal production, were there more men employed ?
They did increase coal production. Yes they did. Increase the coal and eh, at that time they sent up young laddies from London, all over England and called "Bevven Boys" which I think you have heard of already. Well, in my time when I was in the pit there was one darkie boy sent up from London and eh, he was on the belt at the coal face at that pit at Dighills at the time that when the posts went everybody ran, right. Now the darkie, he ran right oot the road right down through the hutches going up and down right out the level instead of getting the man-riding buggies up to the pit bottom he ran up there and got up into the baths and got himself washed his clothes on and went to London and never come back They tell me that them that saw him going up there went away as white as a ghost. White as a ghost going back pale instead of black.

So at that time with the shortage of men of course, they sent tha' young chaps up for a period to take place in the mines like and were called "Bevven Boys" cos Ernest Bevven at that time was the minister of work or something like that.

What happened down the mines if the sirens went, did you just have to run and get out to?
You, when the posting went that means the roof cracking an the weight an girns all bedding down and big stones falling out - you wa all ran until it quietened and everybody went back to work.

But if the sirens went you know like if the bombers were overhead the other people would go to like the air raid shelters or whatever, did you all just have to leave the same way?
No. When you were down below you never heard nothing, knew nothing about it..

So you just hoped?
Just, well I can remember - 1939 when we heard that the war had broke out tht this man a lot older, I was a young lad at the time, aulder than me. He says Oh dear Oh Dear we're going doon here and we're no gonna get back again we'll be bombed we'll be bombed. He was terrified But it never materialised it never happened. It was just an example because they were frightened at that time.

Are there any particular experiences that you remember down the mines?
Well I can remember there was a grinade, a fall of stone an one of my mates was killed. And the pit was idle that day. Everybody went home. That was it. Sad. A similar experience, another man got crushed to death just wi four hutches going in below, below their belts. I've seen all that, I was very upset.

Were any of your friends actually went off to war, or were most of them in the pits with you?
There were quite a few who. There was a cousin of mine in the air force who was killed.

How was he killed do you know?
In the airforce aye. I can't remember things that. I didn't think about experiences like that. That's William Bower, Willy Bower brother. And there were 1 or 2 chaps in Hill o Beath I knew they went to that airforce, well, no the airforce the army and they never came back - Pat Hughes an the other chap, things like that you know.

Any daft incidents during the war or anything that particularly stands out in your mind, it could be like you said about those bombs that went off?
Well, that's the only experience I can remember o that. Er no when you are down the pit you didna know whit was going on. Nothing at aw. You were down below and that was it. You just find out once.

But once you were home it all materialises what was going on. For instance when sirens went off you went in below the tables and the women went into the air raid shelters, you know at that time you had an air raid shelter up your garden, you always were up there. Anderson Shelters you called them. You'll mind being told that before.

Yes, too young for those fortunately.

No, but I mean, now lately you have been told that the shelters up the garden of the people at that time were called Anderson Shelters.
That's right, and there was, I can't remember the other ones with just, the ones they had under the table with kind of wire mesh, they had for under tables, not that I think would be terribly safe. They had those ones as well and just put a mattress in so how that was going to protect them I have no idea.

I've never heard of that no, never heard of that.

Its in the kiddies books, we sort of do that when we are covering it.