The Forth Rail Bridge

Dan Cruickshanks presented a program last night about our famous bridge, he presents a lot of historical programs from around the UK.

He went into great detail about the construction of the bridge which was completed in 1890, 57 men lost their lives and many more were severely injured.
They toiled night and day for 7 years to build it, there's an inn below the bridge on the south bank, the Hawes Inn, it had a temporary hospital ward to accommodate the dead, dying and injured workers till they could be transferred to Edinburgh Infirmary.

The barman in the inn at the time used to fill and line-up 200 pints of beer on the bar ready for the men when they finished their days work.

A really sad story was told on the program about a son and father who worked as painters on the bridge in the 50's and 60's, Dan interviewed an old lady from Fife who lost her eldest son when he fell off the bridge, then sadly, 9 years later she also lost her husband when he fell to his death.
The lady was in tears recalling how she walked the shoreline for days hoping to recover his body but he was never seen again.

There is no memorial plaque on the bridge in honour of the brave men who died during construction or who have later lost their lives maintaining the bridge, but there is one name on it to honour "The Prince of Wales" who banged in the final rivet in 1890 on completion of the construction.

What a disgrace, Dan Cruickshanks said so on the program, it took 5,000 men 7 years to build the bridge then the prince comes up from London and hammers in one rivet and gets the honour of having his name on a plaque, ah the good old days, when hard workers were treated like scum by employers the royalty.

You think thats harsh?

The Great Ocean Road, one of the finest driving roads in the world, was built to commemorate the dead from the 1st world war in australia. Who built it? The vets who returned from said world war. Thousands died making it.

ive got a fantstic photo of my dad sitting with the forth bridge in the back ground. lovely pic.