“It was a good life”: Memories and landscape in the Mining Communities of East Ayrshire

Speaker: Dr Yvonne McFadden, University of Strathclyde This talk was given on 21 March 2024 via Zoom. In this talk, Dr Yvonne McFadden explored the role of place in remembering the miner’s rows in East Ayrshire. Little now remains of the row villages throughout Ayrshire but they live on in the memories of the villagers and their families. Looking at coalfield maps and through the stories of the villagers and their descendants, the lives of the women, men and children who called these rows their home, was reconstructed. Under central housing policy in the interwar period, mining families were decanted into new social housing with modern amenities, with most villages emptied by the mid-1950s. However, there remained a strong attachment to the row villages. The impact of opencast mining around the area in some cases blasted these villages off the map. These lost villages are memorialised within the landscape today through the work of individuals and the local communities, to ensure this heritage is not lost for future generations. Dr Yvonne McFadden is a lecturer and Co-Director of the Scottish Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde. Dr McFadden’s project website, The Lost Villages of East Ayrshire: https://www.thelostvillages.co.uk/ Memory, Mining and Heritage Voices from Ayrshire Communities: https://www.carnpublishing.com/mmh.html