BISHOP WAITED AT THE PIT-HEAD

Catholics in Scots colliery disaster
BY A STAFF REPORTER
AMONG the people who stood waiting at the pithead last Saturday, when 1116 men were trapped in the workings of the Knockshinnoch Castle Colliery, Ayrshire, was Mgr. Mellon, Bishop of Galloway. .
Below ground, among the trapped men, were a number of Catholics. Still more stood among the relatives waiting anxiously for news.
Mgr. Mellon, who only recently recovered from an illness, divided his time between consoling relatives in the crowd and visiting others in their
h .' The crowd." he said, " was quiet and reverent, but there was a tense atmosphere of anxiety. Rescue workers—some of them Catholics— were doing a marvellous job." Fr. Michael Rynn, of Kirkconnel, spent all night at the pit-head with the men and women, waiting through the cold hours of darkness as rescue operations went on.
Thanksgiving
Then. on Sunday morning, be celebrated Mass before a crowded congregation in St. Margaret's, New Cumnock, in thanksgiving for the rescue of the 116 men and for the 13 who are believed to have been killed.
Among the rescued. were Sam Kilday and James McCann, Catholics who were both in a choir formed bx the trapped men. McCann was a member of the squad which dug from the inside of the workings to meet the rescuers :
,' We could hear the rescue party digging on the other side and we just kept working away," he said.