Fifers have been encouraged to make any donation they can towards a memorial honouring those who died in the Tay Bridge disaster in 1879.
The Courier told yesterday how Glenrothes poet Ian Nimmo White has been looking into the tragic events in great detail and has even traced the descendants of the fateful train’s driver, David Mitchell, who was born and brought up in nearby Leslie.
Now Mr Nimmo White hopes the generous Fife public will be able to make the Tay Rail Bridge Disaster Memorial Trust’s dreams of creating a lasting tribute to those who perished come to fruition.
“I can’t assume that everybody’s going to be interested and some people think that history is best left behind,” he said. “But some historians talk about the advancing knowledge of history and we’re finding out things about this disaster that we didn’t know before.
“We’ve got a local man, David Mitchell, who went over this precipice and into a void with countless tonnes of steel falling in on top of him, and his boiler man was apparently dead before he hit the water.
“Lots of women and children were involved and then of course you had a lot of widows after the disaster, and that was in a time of no social security, when the relief fund was pretty abysmal and the rail companies were not particularly generous.
“If you think about that, then maybe people would stop griping about their bank accounts and maybe realise what life was like for people like David Mitchell’s family.”
The trust is hoping to raise £50,000 for the project and anyone who can help can write to the Tay Rail Bridge Disaster Memorial Trust, Ian Rae, TRBDMT treasurer, 11 Wilmington Drive, Glenrothes, Fife, KY7 6US.
Further information is also available from Stuart Morris, of Balgonie Castle, on 01592 750119.
Mr Nimmo White’s poem is expected to be inscribed on the memorial on the Dundee side of the Tay when it is commissioned.