Do you remember the dates of the following events? Do you remember how many victims each catastrophe (because that's what it was to the families of the people involved) claimed? And do you remember where you were when each event happened? The Piper Alpha Disaster, the Lockerbie Bombing and the Dunblane Massacre.
The Piper Alpha Disaster took place in July 1988 and killed 167 people. The Lockerbie Disaster happened in December 1988 and 270 died, including 11 on the ground. The Dunblane School Massacre was in March 1996 and 16 small children and a teacher died.
Many of us in Scotland remember very well these terrible events.
We're coming up to the 25th anniversary of Piper Alpha and Lockerbie. There's sure to be a lot of renewed interest in Lockerbie since it was an event with international ramifications and huge political significance. James Robertson has written a (thinly disguised) book about it, published this year. The parents of the Dunblane children asked for the media circus to move on and leave them alone, and their wishes have mostly been adhered to. But the Piper Alpha anniversary is slipping past almost unnoticed. Yes, there is a memorial in Aberdeen and there have been news reports this week, but no great commemoration. Why would that be?
We're coming up to the 25th anniversary of Piper Alpha and Lockerbie. There's sure to be a lot of renewed interest in Lockerbie since it was an event with international ramifications and huge political significance. James Robertson has written a (thinly disguised) book about it, published this year. The parents of the Dunblane children asked for the media circus to move on and leave them alone, and their wishes have mostly been adhered to. But the Piper Alpha anniversary is slipping past almost unnoticed. Yes, there is a memorial in Aberdeen and there have been news reports this week, but no great commemoration. Why would that be?
Allow me to be cynical for a wee moment. First of all, Piper Alpha was an accident in the oil business. Oil in the UK was and is sacrosanct. We can't do without it and we can't let anything disrupt its production if we can avoid it. There were calls in 1988 to close down all the North Sea rigs until there had been some sort of enquiry into the risks attached to oil exploration in that environment but these requests came to nothing and the people who work on the rigs continue to fight for trades union representation as one way to safeguard their lives.
In addition, Piper Alpha - to continue my cynicism - was an industrial accident. Nobody pays much attention to them. Just ask the families involved in Stockline: 9 dead in 2004 in Glasgow, who fought tooth and nail to get justice for their people caught up in the explosion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockline_Plastics_factory_explosion
Or the families all over Scotland who lost people in coal mining disasters over and over for a couple of centuries. You can see their names - and the horrific numbers - here: http://scottishmining.co.uk/5.html
The statistics for victims of shipbuilding and engineering accidents and incidents are harder to find on the internet, but most families with relatives working in these areas have had experience of taking a trip to the hospital to see an injured relative.
We're hearing at the moment the terrible story of 19 fire fighters who died in Arizona. They were experts at what they did and they knew the risks. They were, as President Obama said, people who 'walked towards the fire' for the sake of their community. We've lost fire fighters in Scotland too, most recently Ewan Williamson in Edinburgh: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-22085159 - or there's Cheapside in Glasgow in 1968 when 22 people died: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheapside_Street_Whisky_Bond_Fire
But I truly believe it's only the implementation of H&S regulations that stops the casualty list in the workplace being even worse than it is. And in the UK it's pretty bad. Not that you can tell from the media. It takes a lot for an industrial accident to hit the papers or TV screens at all.
You are so right, Jean, about industrial injuries, especially in the mining industry in the past. How often do we hear the phrase "health and safety gone mad" expressed by someone, who obviously has not thought through the dire consequences of a lack of safety legislation.
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