This is a true account of the Brown & Polson explosion..

It happened on the 5th. June, 1964.. In Paisley town..

Hello all, its nice to see the pub so busy, makes a change.......

So I think I will tell you all a wee story about an event, which I was involved with back, in 1964, it is an eyewitness account of the Brown and Polson dust explosion on the 5th. of june 1964. when five souls lost their lives..

But to start with.. I have to go back to the night previous, the 4th. june 1964.... I was on nightshift with blue watch.. When I was told by my station officer to get myself out to the thornhill hospital as my wife was about to give birth to my first born.. When I arrived at the hospital, my wife Jean had given birth to a son.. I was over the moon with delight at having a son.... the first of six... five boys and one daughter.. unfortunatly one of my sons died at childbirth.....

Anyway. back at the fire station to complete my shift. the bells went off at 0630am..

It was a call to an explosion at the brown and polson factory, persons reported missing....

The factory was an old building with very thick walls, It was five stories tall...

When we arrived at the scene, all that was left of it was one very large pile of bricks and morter, being young, and inexperianced [ I was only 24 at this time ] My first impression was that the mill had been pulled down by contractors.. But I was so wrong...

 As I made my way to the debris, I noticed a movement in the rubble, when a man appeared out of it.. his brown overalls shredded off of him along with half his skin hanging like tatters from him..  He muttered to me where his two mates were seen last..

So I helped the poor soul over to the care of an ambulance crew, turned round and headed back to the scene of chaos... I called over to another fireman, [ Alec Lawler ] to come and help me to search the area that the injured workman had told me about..

So together, we tore at the rubble with our hands, when we heard someone groaning... We cleared the rubble from him.. and made a stretcher out of a short extension ladder, roped him in it with a personal line [which we all carried in these days ] then lowered him down to some other firemen....

We then resumed searching the rubble and came to a bit of brown cloth... As we cleared the bricks and mortar from it.. we had found another soul.. But he was dead, he was lying face down wth a massive lump of concrete on top of him..We cleared it off of him and called for another stretcher to be passed up to us, we wrapped his head in rags and secured his body with a line and lowered him to our mates down below .......

another two workers were found in the remains of a works van... it was completely flattened by the whole of the gable wall... which crashed down on it...

It was just like a butchers shop.. Terrible..

The last person was found two days later.. He was lying beside a three ton truck. Which no one knew was there... untill a bulldozer found it..

the fifth worker was never found ......

The explosion was caused by corn dust.. which had gathered in the old mill over the years .. Under certain atmospheric conditions, this dust can glow.. and then ignite.. Devouring the air inside the building.. which then causes an implosion.......

Although this happened back in 1964... I sometimes dream of the apparition of the first workman lumbering towards me...  It was scary...

Now I tried to google up this tragic event.. But could find no trace of it..... So I thought.. If there is no public record of it.. Then why not tell it to you all on this forum ... and hopefully lay to rest the ghosts in me.....

George..