Tour Scotland short sunny Spring 4K travel video clip, with Scottish music, of the Bowhill cemetery on ancestry, genealogy, family history visit to Cardenden in Central Fife. Bowhill is a former mining village located between Auchterderran and Cardenden in Fife. With these and Dundonald, Bowhill is one of the A-B-C-D villages, which developed in the late 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries and today form a conjoined settlement two and half miles North East of Lochgelly. The Lady Josephine Colliery, which lay to the west of the village of Bowhill, operated between 1895 and 1965. Disaster struck when ten men were killed in an explosion on the 31st October, 1931. This cemetery contains, amongst others, the gravestone of famed Celtic and Scotland Goalkeeper, John Thomson who was born on 28 January 1909 in Kirkcaldy, to John and Jean Thomson. He grew up in the mining community of Cardenden in Fife, and was educated at Denend Primary School and Auchterderran Higher Grade School. By the time he reached High School he was already seen as a talented goalkeeper and was part of the Auchterderran school team that won the Lochgelly Times Cup. At the age of 14, he became a worker at Bowhill Colliery, where his father also worked. He worked 300 yards below the pithead surface, uncoupling the chain clips of the waggons that carried the coal up from the mine. During the 1924 to 1925 season, Thomson played for Bowhill Rovers in the Fife Junior Football League. The following season, he moved to Wellesley Juniors, where his talent was spotted by the local press who predicted that he would become a very good goalkeeper in future. Celtic manager Willie Maley sent his chief scout Steve Callaghan to watch the Denbeath Star goalkeeper but instead Callaghan came back with a rave review about Thomson. After watching him playing against Denbeath Star on 20 October 1926, Celtic signed 17 year old Thomson for £10. On 5 February 1927. In 1931, Thomson got engaged to Margaret Finlay and also started making plans to open a tailor shop in Glasgow. He was a member of the Church of Christ, a small Protestant Evangelical church. On 5 September 1931, Celtic were playing their Old Firm rivals Rangers at Ibrox Park in Glasgow in front of 80,000 people. Early in the second half Thomson and a Rangers player, Sam English, went for the ball at the same time. Thomson's head collided with English's knee, fracturing his skull and rupturing an artery in his right temple. Thomson was taken off the field in a stretcher; most people assumed that he was just badly concussed, but a few people who had seen his injuries suspected worse. After having treatment from the St Andrew's Ambulance Association, he was taken to a stretcher and was seen to rise on the stretcher and look towards the goal and the spot where the accident happened. The game ended 0–0. Thomson was taken to the Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow. He had a lacerated wound over the right parietal bones of the skull, causing a depression in his skull 2 inches in diameter. At 5:00 pm he suffered a major convulsion. Dr Norman Davidson carried out an emergency operation to try to lower the amount of pressure caused by the swelling brain, but the operation was unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead by 9.25 pm. His death shocked many people. English, who was deeply traumatised by the event, was totally cleared of any responsibility for the accident. Even now Thomson's grave in Bowhill, Fife remains a place of pilgrimage for Celtic fans. On his gravestone it reads " They never die who live in the hearts they leave behind. "
Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
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