Davie Adamson arrived in Coalhurst in 1921. He and four
other miners brought a Long Wall Coal Cutting Machine
from Glasgow, Scotland, to work in the mine at Coalhurst.
Three others who came with him were John Deans, Davie
Lees and Andrew Carnagie. They worked this long wall
system for about two years, but they had to abandon it
because they could not hold the roof. However, my father
decided to stay working at the mine with one of the other
miners Andy Carnagie.

In the early fall of 1923 my mother, my sister, Martha, and
myself, along with Mrs. Carnagie's daughter Lizzie, and son
Tom, arrived in Coalhurst. We started school after the summer
holidays. The school at that time was down by the mine dump,
halfway between Wigan and Coalhurst. I quit school in 1927,
and got a job in the mine. My father and I stayed with this
occupation until the tragic explosion in December of 1935.

In my father's days in Scotland he became very adept in
the game of soccer, and he played this game here with
Coalhurst. He also played for the town of Commerce in 1923,
when that year they won the League Championship. I
played for Coalhurst along with my father, and in 1934 we
held some kind of record of a grandfather, father and son,
playing at that time.

After the mine shut down, we moved to Lethbridge on
July 12, 1936. After a period of unemployment, my father
found a job as a caretaker at the airport for Trans Canada
Airlines. When the Second World War started, he joined
the Veteran Guards, and remained there until the end of
the war. He then worked as a janitor at the Lethbridge
Hotel. In 1953 he lost most of his eyesight, and he finally
had to retire. In 1958, after three operations for cancer,
my mother passed away on April 10, which also was my
birthday. My father then entered the Green Acres Lodge,
and after staying there for ten years he had an operation
for gallbladder which I believe was too much for him.
He passed away in March of 1972, in his 88th year.

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