I remember these chaps well, I visited the Rescue Centre with my father as he was part of the team in the early 1970's. Jack Craner was the chap in charge and seen driving the truck.

I was one of 5 NCB sponsored students at Kirkcaldy Technical College in the late 1970s early 80s and we were asked by the NCB to undertake the basic Mines Rescue training at Cowdenbeath. We all passed the course and I went on to do 6 or 7 years in the brigade. The Harvard Pack test was brutal and being along skinny specimen I had to carry the maximum weight, it was not really a test of strength, but of endurance and recovery. I only got called out once, at the end of a normal Monday working shift at Killoch, to an underground fire at Solsgirth Colliery. Did not get back home until late on the Wednesday. Proves why endurance was required I suppose.

I had too many vices and failed the medical - Though not in the forefront of your mind every shift, it was always a quiet comfort that these guys would be there if you were unfortunate enough to need them. One friend on the team had, in a training exercise, to deal with a 'victim' who was very energetically trying to claw off his breathing mask so he did what he had to do. and smacked him one. Broke his jaw as it happens. The exercise was so realistic in artificial smoke filled conditions and adrenaline was up, he just reacted - passed with flying colours