Windy Gully Memorial Service

Watch: People gather for the 96 Candles memorial ceremony remembering the miners who died in the 1902 Mount Kembla mine explosion.

Transcript

00:00🎵Bagpipes🎵

00:10🎵Let us rejoice, for we are one and free🎵

00:19🎵The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want🎵

00:27At the time of the explosion, 260 men were in the mine.

00:32Of those 260 men, 96 miners, including young boys of the age of 14, had been killed.

00:40Included in the 96 miners who lost their lives were two rescuers who succumbed to the gas during their attempt to rescue the mine workers.

00:50The incident had an enormous impact on the Illawarra and the village where we are this evening, Mount Kembla,

00:57where the devastating effect of lives lost and the families that were tragically torn apart still resonates to this day.

01:07🎵Lonely, the wind sings🎵

01:11🎵Lonely, the bird wings through Boulder Hill🎵

01:17🎵Then all is still in Windy Gully🎵

01:22🎵Deep in the mountainside, 96 miners died🎵

01:31Closed down, the old pit. Sealed up the mouth of it.

01:38Francis Dungy, he was aged 45. He was the day deputy that day, buried at Mount Kembla, leaving his wife Mary and their seven children.

01:50Peter Frankins, lighting a candle for Stephen Gleeson, aged 33.

02:00🎵Lonely, the wind sings🎵

02:05🎵Lonely, the bird wings through Boulder Hill🎵

02:10🎵Then all is still in Windy Gully🎵

02:15🎵Deep in the mountainside, 96 miners died🎵

02:23🎵Massive hearts on fires and lungs caved in🎵

02:27🎵Old fathers, children, widows, once wives🎵

02:31🎵Oh, so much coal, but what's the price? Tell me, what's the price?🎵

02:39🎵96 souls in just one day, and you can't hope to move on🎵

02:45🎵Oh, buried down beneath the coal, beneath the coal🎵