Under blazing summer skies on Tuesday former Prime Minister Gordon Brown stood in the middle of a Fife landscape once farmed by his ancestors.
However, this was no cosy trip down memory lane for the Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath MP. Instead, it was a brutal encounter with the harsh realities of abject poverty and strife caused by unemployment and strikes, reduced wages, longer working hours and the withdrawal of benefits.
Britain 2011? No, 1926.
Which is all being painstakingly recreated in the former mining heartlands of Fife in a major film project by well-established company Theatre Workshop Scotland. The Happy Lands, its second feature film, recounts the extreme hardship of typical Fife mining families but also reflects their community spirit, solidarity, compassion and humour.
Visiting one of the sets of miners’ rows built at Bowhill restoration and recycling centre Mr Brown praised the commitment of all involved in recreating the important piece of Scotland’s seam of rich mining history.
“This is great for Fife, to have them tell of what happened here and the story of the miners’ strike and the hardships and pressures people were under,” he said. “It is a great artistic endeavour but also a great piece of local history which ought to be recounted and remembered.
“I lived through the miners’ strike in the 80s when people were having to use soup kitchens just think about the conditions in the 20s and the pressures they faced,” he said.
The politician was pleased the production is being filmed on Brighills, where his great-grandfather had worked on the local farm which later went on to become a colliery employing over 1000 people at one time.ResonanceHaving seen scenes of a boxing bout and of families worried about the future of the pit, Mr Brown said this was a “really interesting story of Fife but one which will also have a resonance across Scotland.”
And, of course, even though set almost a century ago in an area which still bears the mental and physical scars of its highs and lows with king coal, it has a curious resonance. “Unemployment is a huge problem,” the MP added. “It was in the 20s, it was in the 80s and is now. But it also spoke volumes of the unchanging spirit of community.
“We pride ourselves in Fife on being strong on community and when people are in trouble and facing difficulties our communities come to support people in need and those who are suffering.”
Mr Brown was joined by another who is no stranger to the area or its mining heritage Pars legend Jim Leishman, who grew up near Brighills and remembers the real Happyland in Lochgelly.
He was amazed at the work put in to make the filming authentic, saying, “My grandfather and gran stayed in the Happyland and some of the family did work in Brighills and the Wee Mary and Jennie Gray pits. When I came down the brow of the hill I used to do my running here and saw the set I thought, ‘Wow!’.”
He too recalled the hardships faced by the miners in the 80s and also spoke of the hardship of their predecessors in the 1926 strike. “That is when the community spirit comes out in Fife, the community pulling together, when you could get a jeelie piece at anyone’s door.”