The 40th Anniversary of the 1973 Disaster
40 years is quite a time.
But some people here today will remember the events of that night and of the week following as though it were only yesterday.
One thing is certain; all of us here are a lot older than we were in 1973.
Had they lived, of the seven men who died, the eldest would have been 89 by now, and the youngest 70.
Of course, there is always a chance that if they had escaped or been rescued, they might have died of something else by now, particularly if they had continued to work in the mining industry.
For even though there are very few working collieries left, fatal accidents still continue to happen. Three men have been killed at Kellingley in the last five years.
And it’s not just a matter of fatal accidents; many miners’ lives have been drastically shortened or blighted by industrial injuries or diseases contracted in the course of their work.
During my time as the Vicar of a mining parish, how many funerals must I have done where the cause of death has included some sort of chest complaint like silicosis or emphysema? And to how many other ailments has the miner’s way of life contributed? – All part of the “True price of coal”, as proclaimed on the mines recue banner over there.
Of those who escaped the inrush at Lofthouse there are fewer and fewer left to to tell the story of that night.
Of the Lofthouse men involved in driving the piggyback rescue tunnel, only one is left, and since then he has lost the sight of an eye in an accident at Wistow Colliery.
But today our thoughts and prayers focus on those seven men whose lives were tragically cut short 40 years ago this week and so never had the chance or the choice to leave or continue in the mining industry, never had the chance to grow old.
We remember them and their families, families that have had an empty place among them for the last 40 years.
Coal mining has gone on in the Outwood area for many centuries.
Before coal was discovered, burning wood was the main fuel for cooking, keeping warm, and to provide heat for metal working and other rudimentary industrial processes.
Towns generally had wooded areas on their outskirts which supplied their needs and these woods were gradually consumed over the years.
How fortuitous that the great Wakefield Out Wood was found to be sitting on top of extensive coal seams of varying thicknesses.
Not long ago, when an extension was being built on to Lofthouse Gate School in Canal Lane, the digging of the foundations uncovered such a seam outcropping at the surface.
(Isn’t it strange that Drax power station is starting to burn wood and so called “bio-mass”, mostly imported from North America, and that the new mines that were sunk to feed it have been closed down, their ample coal seams abandoned? Is history going backwards?)
Lofthouse Colliery was sunk in the 1870’s.
I often used to wonder why it was called “Lofthouse” when it was in Outwood.
But I think I’ve worked out the answer.
They called it “Lofthouse” because it was next to Lofthouse railway station.
Lofthouse railway station wasn’t in Lofthouse either, but when the station was built in 1858 there was no specific village called “Outwood”.
The whole area was part of the great Out Wood so they named the station after the nearest identifiable village, which was Lofthouse.
In the course of time, the station closed and later re-opened as Outwood station, but Lofthouse Colliery retained its original name!
As well as being a memorial time for the 1973 disaster, today is also by way of being a reunion for those who worked at Lofthouse colliery before its final closure in 1981.
Some moved to Wistow and to other mines; some left the industry altogether.
As you come together today, as well as commemorating the seven men killed in 1973, you will be reminiscing about many other things – good times as well as bad, comedy as well as tragedy.
Working together in under such potentially difficult and dangerous circumstances builds bonds and relationships between people, similar to those serving in the armed forces.
As well as remembering the disaster victims, we give thanks for all the friendships, commitment and support shared together over the years.
The mining industry has now disappeared from our local area.
There’s not much obvious sign that it was ever here.
We are fortunate not to be like one of those isolated former pit villages where everything was completely blighted when the pit shut.
Nevertheless, it is part of our heritage.
Without the mining industry, Outwood would not exist as it does today.
Most likely, this church building wouldn’t be troubled by the affects of subsidence, and Stanley Church might still be open.
But if the mining industry hadn’t been here, there would have been no need for the church in the first place, and not the 11,000 or so population who live in this parish today.
The church building is here for the people; the church is people, an open community in the midst of the wider community, sharing in all that happens in that wider community, which is another reason why I am glad to welcome you here today.
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week.
Around the walls of the church building are 14 pictures tracing the journey Jesus made in that first Holy Week to the place of his death – the Way of the Cross.
In him we see God living our life and sharing our death.
He shared the death of those seven men who died at Lofthouse Colliery, and he spoke to them the same words he spoke to one of those who died on a cross along side his, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”.
Dedication of Lofthouse Colliery Nature Park Heritage Trail
By the Vicar of Outwood,
following the opening and unveiling of the monument by Mr Chris Skidmore of the Yorkshire NUM
Saturday 30th November 2013
We have come here today for the official opening and dedication of the Heritage Trail through Lofthouse Colliery Nature Park.
As we come, there are many different thoughts in our minds to do with our past, our present and our future.
We see an area that was once part of the great Wakefield Out Wood where nature flourished and animals grazed.
We see the marks of industrialisation where the railway came and the earth was exploited.
We see the remains of a man-made landscape from colliery waste and surface drainage.
We see the land being restored to nature and opened up for the public good.
As we look and see these things we remember how much this area is part of our shared history in this district.
If Lofthouse Colliery had never existed, Outwood would never have grown and developed as it has done.
The pit was sunk in the 1870’s and closed in 1981. How many people must have worked here over the years! And how different life was in the 1870’s and 1970’s from how it is now!
The Heritage Trail will bear witness to these things and teach up-coming generations about the lives of their local forebears.
We give thanks for these and all those who had a part in the building of the community in which we live today.
In a minute of silence let us remember the people who worked at Lofthouse Colliery and are no longer with us – disaster and accident victims and all the men and women of our previous generations.
(One Minute’s Silence)………………………………………
Rest eternal grant to them O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them.
“O God from whose love in Jesus Christ we cannot be separated either by death or life, hear our prayers for those whom we remember at this time and grant us with them, and all the faithful departed, the sure benefits of your Son’s saving passion an glorious resurrection; that in the last day when you gather up all things in Christ we may all enjoy the fullness of your promises; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord” AMEN.
A reading from the Book of Job about the mining industry of his day, up to a thousand years before the birth of Jesus,
“ There is a mine for silver,
And a place for gold which they refine.
SERMON PREACHED BY THE REVD JOHN WALTON
BUTTERWORTH,
NINTH VICAR OF OUTWOOD,
AT THE PARISH MASS ON SUNDAY 17th APRIL 2016
This is the last time I shall stand here and speak to you as your Vicar.
It could give me chance to say what I really think and tell you how terrible you all are and how much I have hated my time here. I have heard of some Vicars doing that!
But I can’t do it because it is not true; you are all quite wonderful, and I love you all dearly – warts and all, as they say!
This place has been home to Deacon Gill and me for nearly 38 years now. Our children have grown up here. This community is our community, and as your Vicar I have come to regard the current and previous generations of the Church here as my extended family, and the previous clergy as my direct ancestors. Thank you for being part of my life and allowing me to be part of yours in one way or another.
In the catholic tradition of the Church of England, the parish priest is called “Father”, which emphasises that the local Church community is a family and part of an even bigger family. He has a spiritual fatherhood derived from the Bishop who is our “Father in God”, and ultimately from the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God and Father of us all.
In a few days time, I shall officially cease to be your Father and disappear from the local community, which will take some getting used to, for me at least. Perhaps you might allow me to think of myself as your honorary grandfather who has moved into a smaller house a few miles away.
The first Vicar of Outwood (I’m the ninth) was the Reverend James Stewart Gammell, 156 years ago. You can still see his initials on the lower gable of the old vicarage next door. He was here 20 years, married a local girl from Wrenthorpe, began his family here, sorrowed over the death of his little girl, and baptised, married and buried the forebears of many of the present day residents of this parish.
When he left, it wasn’t to go into complete retirement, but to move first to Bristol so his children could finish their education at Clifton College and be near some of Mrs Gammell’s family who now lived in Bath, and then to a castle in Scotland on the estate he had inherited from a rich uncle.
But although he became a “laird”, he was still very much a priest and built his own church just outside the castle gates and a little church hall that bears exactly the same monogram of his initials as you can see on the side of the “Kirklands”. Nor did he forget the Church here in Outwood; he paid for the building of our Lady Chapel, which for some years to seems have been known as the “Gammell Memorial Chapel”, even though he built it while he was still alive as a thank-offering for his time in Outwood. According to his family history, “He also considered the members of his old congregation at Outwood in their sickness, and colliers from Yorkshire could frequently be seen enjoying the pure air in the Glen of Drumtochty”.
(I’m sorry but I have no rich uncles and will not be moving to a castle nor will I be able to pay for work on the church.)
When he eventually died, a real memorial to him was erected in this church – the second pair of stained glass windows in the north aisle. I always thought it strange that both windows should have a picture of the same person. Jesus is the only figure in each of them, whereas in all the other paired windows down that side we see two different figures: here the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint John the Apostle, next the Archers, David and Ruth, and at the back, a Roman soldier who could be anybody from Longinus to Saint Martin of Tours and a woman I have always thought might be Saint Anne since the window was presented in memory of a woman called Anna.
But why two Jesus’ on the first Vicar’s memorial? I suggest you might like to have a close look at them and a good think about them.
One is a representation of Christ similar to Holman Hunt’s painting “The Light of the World”, based on our Lord’s words in Revelation chapter 3: “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me.”
And the other window depicts Christ the Good Shepherd, complete with shepherd’s crook, a lamb in his arms, and a ewe by his leg.
Both widows portray different aspects of the work of a priest, based on the work of Christ himself.
The priest is the evangelist who proclaims the good news of God’s love in Christ and shares the Bread of Life with those who respond. And he is the shepherd, the pastor who gets alongside his people and lives among them, looking after them from birth to death, sharing their lives to such an extent that, as Pope Francis has said, “The shepherd starts to smell like the sheep”. Being a good shepherd involves stability and commitment to the job in hand. This is all part of the work of the priest, and work that I have been privileged to share in among you for nearly 40 years.
Part of the work of the priest is to be a Father in the local Church, but he is also himself a child of the same Heavenly Father. Part of the work of the priest is to be an evangelist, a proclaimer of good news and a sharer of the Bread of Life, but he needs to hear and respond more fully to that news for himself and himself be fed and nourished by the sacraments. Part of the work of the priest is to be a good shepherd, but he himself is also one of Christ’s flock. The recognition of these facts helps the priest to keep his feet on the ground and not to get too big an idea of his own personal importance, even though his work is vital.
In the same way the flock should realise that they are not just there to be sheep, to be looked after, preached to, prayed for, fed and entertained. The flock have a responsibility towards each other, to be shepherds to each other, to support, encourage and care for each other. Some church congregations can be a bit reticent about this. Whilst there is a lot that goes on under the surface here, over the next few months while there is no Vicar you will get plenty more practice.
Some parishes can be without a priest for a very long time, which might not be as bad as it sounds. Hopefully it would allow the flock to take more responsibility for each other and for the pastoral work of the local Church, remembering that the archetypal Good Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ himself, is also the Lamb of God who fulfils his own particular vocation to take a way the sins of the world and reconcile us with God and each other.
In today’s gospel reading Jesus says: “I know my sheep, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will ever snatch them from my hand..”
So what are you frightened of ? Just get on with it!
Iron is taken out of the earth,
And copper is smelted from the ore.
Men put an end to darkness, and search out to the farthest bound
The ore in gloom and darkness.
They open shafts in a valley away from where men live;
They are forgotten by travellers,
They hang afar from men, they swing to and fro…….
…..Man puts his hand to the flinty rock,
And overturns the mountains by the roots.
He cuts out channels in the rocks,
and his eye sees every precious thing.
He binds up the streams so that they do not trickle,
and the thing that is hid he brings forth to light.
But where shall wisdom be found?
And where is the place of understanding?….
………………………………………………
…Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom;
And to depart from evil is understanding.”
As we dedicate this heritage trail, let us pray for all who will visit here today and in the future, and for ourselves, that we may all grow in true wisdom and understanding, and as our Saviour taught us, so we pray and say together….
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever .Amen.
We sing the hymn….”The old rugged cross” (accompanied by Kippax Brass Band)
The Blessing……..
“The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of GOD and of his Son Jesus Christ Our Lord, and the blessing of God almighty, the Father , the Son and the Holy Spirit be upon you and remain with you always,” Amen