FILM footage and old images of long forgotten scenes and demolished landmarks will be dusted down and brought to life with music in the ‘Old Lochgelly and Cowdenbeath’ slide shows next month.

They take place on Wednesday 19th November at the Lochgelly Centre with songs from The Bowhill Players at the evening show.

They’ll perform old favourites such as ‘The Kelty Clippie’, ‘The Gaffer’ and ‘The Happy Lands’ to bring the event to a close.

Named after the group of performers who toured the works of Joe Corrie (right) in the 1920’s, the musicians on this occasion will be singer Roseanne Gooder, fiddler Louise Timney and David Hershaw on guitar.

Leading the group will be Willie Hershaw (far right), Principal Teacher of Literacy at Beath High School.

He said, “Not enough people know about Joe Corrie which is a shame, particularly so in the case of Fife where he did so much of his work.

“A miner to trade, self-educated and raised in the grinding poverty of the West Fife coalfields where he worked at Bowhill pit from the age of 14, he went on to forge a successful career as a playwright.

“He was also described by T S Elliot as Scotland’s greatest poet since Robert Burns.” Joe Corrie captured the drudgery of working life in Fife and, in staging his plays, his intention was that “the audience, for at least one evening, will forget its slavery”.

‘Old Lochgelly and Cowdenbeath’ will feature archive film including women from Lochgelly and Cowdenbeath describing their experiences of working in the pits as well as images of their living and working conditions.

Hard as it is to imagine now, it was a time when women and children worked down the pits. It was also a period when the response of some councillors to requests to have what we would nowadays regard as basic amenities such as toilets installed in miners houses in Cowdenbeath was that it was a “waste of clean water”.

Some of today’s school children will have the opportunity to attend ‘Old Lochgelly and Cowdenbeath’ courtesy of the Purvis Group, who are supporting the event and making free tickets available to local schools so that they can learn about their history and heritage.

Mr Hershaw, who in addition to performing with the ‘Bowhill Players’, is working to bring the social history of Fife to a wider audience and welcomed this initiative.

He said, “Beath High School is taking part in a pilot project to bring the story of Joe Corrie and his achievements to the attention of a younger audience, with the intention to roll this out nationally, so I’m pleased that some of my pupils will be able to come and see the show.

“I’m keen to publicise what the original Bowhill Players achieved.

“Formed by Joe Corrie to tour his plays throughout Fife, their aim was to raise money to fund soup kitchens during the General Strike in 1926 to feed fellow members of their community who were going hungry as a result of having no earnings.

“They performed to nightly audiences of over a thousand people at an entry fee of a penny. However, they knew that some of their audience couldn’t even afford a penny so they allowed entry on presentation of a button which demonstrates their understanding and connection with their audiences. For people interested in the musical legacy of Joe Corrie, ‘The Joe Corrie Project” CD is available online from Birnam CD and Amazon and will also be on sale at the Lochgelly Centre after the shows.” Tickets for ‘Old Lochgelly and Cowdenbeath’ - there’s a matinee at 2pm and an evening show at 7.30pm – are on sale at Lochgelly Centre box office on 01592 583303.