IN her debut novel, a local author has delved into the infamous tragedy which shook Peeblesshire at the end of the 19th century.

The Mauricewood Pit disaster (1889) which killed over 60 miners – 36 of whom were entombed when the mining shafts were completely sealed in an attempt to stop the four-day fire – is the topic of Dorothy Alexander’s book The Mauricewood Devils.

Families across Peebles were devastated, including her own. 

Her great-great-grandfather, who was 32 at the time, was one of the 36 miners who were still alive when the emergency services began sealing up the Penicuik mine. 

It took six months for all of the victims’ bodies, including his, to be recovered.

Before writing, Dorothy undertook extensive research into the blaze as it wasn’t really a subject widely discussed within her family.

“I remember being told about my great-great-grandfather’s death when I was younger,” she said.

“But it was always just this fact that you knew. No-one really spoke about it – probably because my great-great-grandmother would’ve wanted to protect her children and kept it hushed, and that would have just fed down through the generations until it got to me. 

“There was no real knowledge about what happened.”

The story is set in Peebles and based on the lives of her late relatives after the disaster. Dorothy explained the battle she had with writing a fictional novel based on such a tragic aspect of her family’s past.

“My book was supposed to be about something else from my childhood, and that’s when I got thinking about my great-grandmother – she was orphaned when the fire killed her father. But having known nothing really about what happened, I decided to look into it.

“It was quite emotional and there were so many times when I was in tears. Just reading all the details about what happened to those workers was heartbreaking - some of them were boys as young as 12."

Dorothy, who now lives in Galashiels, has worked as a nurse for most of her life and has just recently accomplished her dream of becoming a full-time writer at the age of 58.

She is currently working on her second novel which also touches on a past personal tragedy. 

Also set in Peebles, the book centres on the death of two schoolfriends whilst at Kingsland Primary.  

“There will be parallels between this and Mauricewood Devils as they were meant to be one book,” she said. 

“This has also been quite emotional work. Like what happened in my family with the Mauricewood fire, the deaths just weren’t spoken about and the adults all completely shut off from all the children.

We didn’t get any counselling or anything like you would get these days.”

On Saturday, Dorothy will be discussing the newly published Mauricewood Devils at The Borders Book Festival in Melrose and is also appearing at the Edinburgh Book Festival on August 13.