The photographs in today's trip down West Fife’s Memory Lane look at the mining history of Dunfermline, an industry that once gave work to tens of thousands of people in the Kingdom.

Our first image is of miners walking up Pittencrieff Street in the 1940s.

Dunfermline Press: Miners on Pittencrieff Street in Dunfermline. Miners on Pittencrieff Street in Dunfermline. (Image: Memory Lane)

Our next image is from one of the worst mining disasters that ever took place in Fife.

It happened early on the morning of 28th October 1939 in the Diamond Section of Valleyfield Colliery.

Dunfermline Press: Families anxiously waiting for news of loved ones after the Valleyfield Disaster in October 1939. Families anxiously waiting for news of loved ones after the Valleyfield Disaster in October 1939. (Image: Memory Lane)

In all, 35 men lost their lives. An explosion of fire damp took place in the section in which the men who were employed there must have been killed almost instantly.

The 'Dunfermline and West Fife Journal' of Friday 3rd November described the photograph of families waiting for news: "For hour after hour women stood at the pit head. Even after it became known that none of the miners were saved they still waited, refusing to give up hope."

Our next image shows a march up Dunfermline High Street in support of the miners strike in 1972 led by the MP at the time, Adam Hunter, and a youthful Les Wood, who served as Provost of Dunfermline for many years and sadly died just last week.

Dunfermline Press: A march up Dunfermline High Street in support of the miners strike in 1972 led by the MP at the time, Adam Hunter.A march up Dunfermline High Street in support of the miners strike in 1972 led by the MP at the time, Adam Hunter. (Image: Memory Lane)

The final image is of miners at Comrie Colliery.

Dunfermline Press: Miners at Comrie Colliery. Miners at Comrie Colliery. (Image: Memory Lane)

As this year is the 40th anniversary of the miners strike in 1984 there will be a series of lectures in the Canmore Room of Dunfermline Carnegie Library & Galleries, starting with the author Robert Gildea, Emeritus Professor of Modern History at Oxford University, on Wednesday 28th February at 11am.

He will be speaking about his book, ‘Backbone of the Nation’, that covers the history of the strike, with this extract from it speaking about Fife: "In Fife the impact of the strike was severe, and there were several painful cases of blacklisted miners who found it difficult to get work."

Dunfermline Press: There are a series of lectures commemorating 40 years since the miners strike. There are a series of lectures commemorating 40 years since the miners strike. (Image: Memory Lane)

‘Red Ronnie’ Campbell, chair of the Lochore strike committee and a miner from the age of 16, was 40 when he was sacked for picketing offences.

He recalled: “I went for two or three interviews and they said to me, ‘What was your last job?’. ‘Miner’. ‘Why did you leave?’. ‘Dismissed during the strike’.

“I knew by the reaction that I wasn’t going to get a job and I never did."

“I think what made it harder for you Dad, mining was all you knew”, chipped in his elder daughter Anna.

Powerfully, his daughters rallied round. Twelve years after he was sacked, Anna, who worked in Asda, persuaded her boss to give him a job there as an in-store cleaner, which he did for 10 years until he retired.

Tickets for this lecture are on sale in Dunfermline Carnegie Library & Galleries priced £5, as well as online at onfife.com.

More photographs like these can be seen in Dunfermljne Carnegie Library & Galleries as well as Facebook.com/olddunfermline