From the Google Vault

A rescued mine worker emerges from Harmony Gold's Elandsrand Mine in Carletonville, South Africa. Photo: Themba Hadebe/AP.

It never ceases to amaze me what one can find on the Internet. This morning I was thinking about the 3,000+ miners who were trapped in, and later rescued from, a mine in South Africa. That led me to remember one of Nova Scotia's most famous mining disasters, which took place at the Cumberland Mine in Springhill in 1958 (Westray was of course to come much later).

For me, I first learned about the Cumberland mine accident from an elementary school teacher who taught history through song. To this day I still remember most of the lyrics. However I couldn't remember them all, so to Google I went to do a search. Lo and behold, there they were.

Footnote: I also remember being shocked when our teacher told us the miners resorted to drinking their own urine when their water ran out. Drinking pee??? It was all too much for my 8-year old mind to comprehend.

SPRINGHILL MINE DISASTER

In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia

Down in the dark of the Cumberland Mine

There's blood on the coal and the miners lie

In the roads that never saw sun nor sky

In the roads that never saw sun nor sky

In the town of Springhill, you don't sleep easy

Often the earth will tremble and roll

When the earth is restless, miners die

Bone and blood is the price of coal

Bone and blood is the price of coal

In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia

Late in the year of fifty-eight

Day still comes and the sun still shines

But it's dark as the grave in the Cumberland mine

But it's dark as the grave in the Cumberland mine

Down at the coal face, miners working

Rattle of the belt and the cutter's blade

Rumble of the rock and the walls closed round

The living and the dead men two miles down

The living and the dead men two miles down

Twelve men lay two miles from the pitshaft

Twelve men lay in the dark and sang

Long hot days in the miners tomb

It was three feet high and a hundred long

It was three feet high and a hundred long

Three days past and the lamps gave out

And Caleb Rushton got up and and said

There’s no more water, or light, or bread
So we'll live on song and hope instead

So we'll live on song and hope instead

Listen for the shouts of the barefaced miners
Listen thru the rubble for a rescue team

Six hundred feet of coal and slag

Hope imprisoned in a three foot seam

Hope imiprisoned in a three foot seam

Eight days passes and some were rescued

Leaving the dead to lie alone

Thru all their lives they dug their grave

Two miles of earth for a marking stone

Two miles of earth for a marking stone

Read this website to learn more (the same website from which came the above photo). Also, to find out more about who Caleb Rushton was, and another of the miners who was trapped underground, scroll down past this piece of music.