Fife coal merchant Andrew Matthew will close this month after operating in Kirkcaldy for more than 100 years.
The business was started in 1921 when coal was delivered by horse and cart.
It has been run by three generations of the Matthew family, with son Andy and grandson Derek following in Andrew’s footsteps.
After 45 years in the business, Derek, 63, will be lifting his last 50kg bag of coal next week.
‘It was a 12-horse operation’: The early days of Andrew Matthew coal merchant
Recalling the early days of the business, he said: “Initially it was started by my grandfather and his brothers in the north end of Kirkcaldy and called Matthew Brothers.
“The legend goes that they’d been fish merchants who went into the coal business.
“Of course, at that time, there were mines everywhere.
“At some point the brothers went their separate ways and the business was renamed.
“By the end of the 1920s it was a 12-horse operation. The business got its first lorries in the 1930s.”
Football legend turned coal merchant
The second generation of the family took over the business in around 1960 following a successful football career.
Andy Matthew was part of the East Fife’s 1953 league cup winning team. He also played for Rangers and was a Raith Rovers player when he took on the business.
While running the company, he also played for Dunfermline Athletic and Cowdenbeath. He was then manager for Cowdenbeath and Raith Rovers.
“Dad was around 30 when he started with the family business,” Derek said. “He had previously worked as a mining engineer at the Frances Colliery.
“My grandfather stopped working after his wife died and my dad combined the business with football.”
For Derek there was never a question that he’d follow in his family’s footsteps, joining at the age of 19.
He said there were signs of the industry’s decline at that stage.
He said: “When I started in 1980, we had five lorries we had at that time, delivering coal. Typically we had about 17 men working for us at that time.
“But I’d say the peak time of the coal was probably just before I started business, about mid-to-late ’70s.
“We used to deliver coal to the schools and hospitals.
“The miners’ strike in 1984 speeded up the demise of the industry by at least about 15, 20 years, I reckon.”
Coal from Colombia
In recent years, the business has imported low sulphur coal from Colombia, which are mostly used in wood-burning stoves.
Derek said: “There’s been a lot of decline and I’ve worked on my own since 1996. But I’m still sitting with just over 320 customers.
“Back in the day, it was the main source of heating. Now it’s an added extra and the business is very seasonal.
“In the old days, the housewife used to buy her coal every week, right through the whole year. So when it got cold in the wintertime, they’d had a stock.
“There’s been a big sort of increase in wood-burning stoves getting fitted. People are using the smokeless fuel with the wood to spin the wood out, because wood burns quite quickly.”
After 45 years, Derek said it was time to stop while he was still in good health.
“Lifting 50kg bags for 45 years is starting to take its toll a bit. I still have my original knees and hips, but my back is sore.
“I’ll miss all my customers. Some of them we’ve been delivering coal to before I started, and also it goes down generations as well, where their grandparents got coal off my grandfather.”
Derek plans to lift a golf bag instead of a coal bag, by caddying at Dumbarnie Golf Links after he closes the business.
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