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Messages - jdh1951

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East Lothian (Haddingtonshire) / Re: Harkess father & son and crew drown 1892
« on: Tuesday 24 March 15 10:51 GMT (UK)  »
I take it that you are also retired Tom?
I taught for 38 years, 32 in primary and my last 6 in secondary teaching 1st and 2nd year and also in the feeder primary schools to that secondary school. I now do the odd lecture for different groups, probus clubs and women's guilds.

JDH

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East Lothian (Haddingtonshire) / Re: Harkess father & son and crew drown 1892
« on: Tuesday 24 March 15 10:16 GMT (UK)  »
I don't know how dad got into golf but he did teach me a lot and I played off 5 for nearly 30 years. He must have been good to have been accepted for a job as an assistant pro. He had not played golf for quite a while when I was given some old hickory shafted clubs by a neighbour. He saw me and the neighbour's son mucking about with these in the park near to our house in Baillieston when he was coming home from work. He said to us to come and get our dinner and I come down with you later. That was how I started. He taught me how to play and I got the bug which has never left me. I was about 8 or 9 at that time and I'm now 64. I was Captain of Drumpellier Golf Club in Coatbridge in 2001-2. I live 300 yards from the clubhouse and 150 yards from the 10th tee.
JDH

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East Lothian (Haddingtonshire) / Re: Harkess father & son and crew drown 1892
« on: Tuesday 24 March 15 10:04 GMT (UK)  »
No dad did not play there to my knowledge but My uncle was head green-keeper there for many years and another Harkess was Captain at Kilspindie. My dad worked as a green-keeper for a period of time at Pollock Golf Club where his uncle was the head green-keeper and professional just after the war.

That was the Lady Victoria Pit in Newtongrange. Not like me to get muddled with history.
JDH

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East Lothian (Haddingtonshire) / Re: Harkess father & son and crew drown 1892
« on: Tuesday 24 March 15 09:01 GMT (UK)  »
Re James M Harkess. In the sixties I was upstairs on a bus with my dad and when it reached Argyll St. in Glasgow, he leaned across me and started to swear at a man who was walking along the street. It was the man who had lit the cigarette down the pit all those years ago in 1929. My dad was a quiet gentle person and that was the first time I had ever heard him swear.
As a result of that explosion he lost a job that he had been accepted for as an assistant golf professional because he spent a year in bandages because of his injuries.

About 1993 I took my class of primary seven on a trip to Lady Jane Grey mining Museum and my dad accompanied me. One of the miners was showing different types of lamps to the children and my dad started to laugh. The man asked him if he had used the carbide lamp and he said yes in Preston Links Pit. He also told him that he had been in the explosion. That word spread round all the retired miners who were working there and before we left to come home every one of them had come to speak to him.
JDH


JDH

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East Lothian (Haddingtonshire) / Re: Harkess father & son and crew drown 1892
« on: Monday 23 March 15 11:31 GMT (UK)  »
Re sinking of 1892, my father told me that some of his relations were drowned in a sinking before he was born in 1909.  I think it was his grandfather. He was one of the men who were questioned in the enquiry into the 1929 pit explosion at Preston links pit. His name was spelt wrongly in the report. My father's name was James M Harkess and NOT Harkness as reported in the press.

I am John Donaldson Harkess and my mother was Elizabeth Harkess nee Stevenson. This is in response to my daughter Lucy posting earlier.

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