MANY people have heard of the famous Cardenden poet and playwright Joe Corrie, and his theatre group, The Bowhill Players.

A new exhibition opening at the Lochgelly Centre from May 7 will reveal the fascinating story of how Corrie became a writer in the first place and how the Bowhill Players started on their road to national fame in the late 1920’s.

Plans for the exhibition are well advanced and everyone is looking forward to this local wordsmith being remembered.

In May, 1926, a General Strike was called in Britain by the TUC to support 1.2 million locked out miners who were being asked to work longer hours for less pay.

Lochgelly man Willie Hershaw is involved in putting the exhibition together and is part of the Bowhill Players of today.

He looked back at how Joe Corrie became such a positive influence. He said: "Joe Corrie was one of these miners. The General Strike would last for only nine days but the miners fought on, the last of them returning to work in November. However the privately owned coal companies refused to re-employ many workers who were considered by them as agitators and trouble-makers.

"Corrie had been forced to leave school at the age of fourteen to work in the pits when his father took ill. He had continued to educate himself after shifts at workers’ educational classes and eventually began to write a column for the Miners’ Reform Newspaper. Now in his early thirties, he was looking for a new job and decided to give play writing a try.

"His three act play In Time O Strife was about three Fife mining families trying to cope under appalling conditions during the recent Strike.

In order to have his play staged Corrie sent it to the Scottish National Players Reading Committee in Glasgow. The great and the good of Scottish Literature sat in judgement.

"They rejected it. Corrie believed they did so because of the play’s

unflinching realism and socialist message and not because of the quality of the writing. This was the first ever play to feature authentic working class Scottish voices on a stage.

Undeterred, Corrie decided to start his own acting group. Initially, It included his sister Violet and brothers Bobby and Jimmy along with other friends from the miners’s raws.

"They took the play around the mining villages of Central Fife and

performed it in Halls and pubs for pennies. The Theatrical Agent Hugh Ogilivie witnessed the play in the Cardenden Gothenburgh one night and recognised its potential immediately. He arranged to have it performed at theatres across Scotland.

"Packed and appreciative audiences saw it from Aberdeen to Edinburgh,

from Dundee to Dumfries. Later it was performed in England. It was translated and performed in Leipzig, Prague and London. The play made Corrie famous and the Bowhill Players turned professional, earning twenty times more money than the average miners’ salary".

Added Willie: "Corrie was compared favourably with the greatest writers

of the time. Today the play is regarded as a masterpiece. The 7:84 company revived it in 1984 during the Thatcher years and final Miners’ Strike. In 2013 the National Theatre Company of Scotland toured it across Britain.

"The play, which depicts working class folk supporting each other through hard times and the vindictive treatment they receive has never lost its relevance.

"But Joe Corrie never forgave the Scottish National Players Reading Committee and they never forgave him. In later life Corrie had to struggle to have his work accepted. Corrie died in Edinburgh in 1968". The Corrie Centre in Cardenden is of course named in his honour.

The Hewers of Coal and Verse Exhibition runs at the Lochgelly Centre from May 7 until August 7.