Bernard McAdams, just 14 years old, died on his very first day at work. Another

14-year-old, James Sneddon, who had worked in the mine for a mere three days, died while his father fought in France. On the surface, all in all, 21 children were

left fatherless

Under this wasted landscape, 11 Scottish miners lie buried. They died in unimaginable horror, struggling for their final breath in black mud and freezing water. But their graves, to this day, are unmarked and their memories are of value only to a few. Now a longstanding campaign to commemorate their sacrifice has hit a new hurdle, as they become the belated victims of the privatisation of the coal industry. Miranda Hurst investigates

It's impossible to escape the heritage of North Lanarkshire. Coal gave the area its jobs, its houses and roads, much of its culture and even its landscape. On the Airdrie to Cumbernauld road, between the sprinkling of new housing developments, lie the small villages which have been home to generations of miners. The village of Greengairs is one such place. You turn towards it on roundabouts paid for by coal, you pass site after site for open cast mining. And if you're unlucky, you spend most of the journey behind a lorry, wending its ponderous way under a weight of coal.

But it has never been a one-way deal. North Lanarkshire has given many of its sons to coal. Miners devoted their working lives, and often sacrificed their health, to carving coal out of the land. And many saw the men at their sides buried or suffocated or drowned in a grim succession of pit disasters. Even today, in the hills surrounding the old mining villages, the bodies of miners lie, irretrievable from collapsed or flooded pits.

Such a pit becomes a designated grave, and can no longer be worked. But in Greengairs, and the ring of villages around it, many people remain unaware that in ground across from their homes, the bodies of 11 miners lie, entombed in the old Stanrigg colliery.

For almost 80 years the deaths of those men, and their final resting places, have been unmarked and uncommemorated. Now, just as the battle to have a memorial erected seemed won, it appears to have faltered.

Scottish Coal has commissioned a stone, marking the fate of the Stanrigg miners. But at the moment that stone remains in the yard of an Edinburgh stonemason, as an argument rages over whether a lay-by should be built at the planned memorial site.

From its first mention in the pages of the Glasgow Herald in 1818, the Stanrigg and Arbuckle colliery has functioned as a microcosm of mining in Scotland. Over the next 100 years, a grim list of fatalities marks the dangers faced by miners: explosions, roof falls, and suffocating gas. Stanrigg was also cursed with one of the most serious obstacles to mining, and one which is almost unique to Scottish mines. The land around the pit is covered with ''moss'', a peaty soil which when saturated with water, becomes unstable. Without warning it can form an unstoppable, mobile morass, which slides over anything in its path, releasing an all-engulfing torrent of mud and water.

In his book about the Stanrigg disaster, Larry O'Hare describes how, early on the morning of July 9, 1918, as the First World War entered its final months, men and boys from the villages of Greengairs, Whiterigg, Meadowhead, Longriggend and Plains made their way to the Stanrigg colliery. Twenty-two men should have gone to work on one seam, known as the Humph, but three were absent, so 19 men descended to the coal face.

Just after 10am, the moss which lay above the mine began to slide. The first indication of the subsidence was a rush of air along the ventilation shafts. The moss forced its way into the pit workings, and filled up two roads leading to the Humph seam. The 19 men were cut off. The moss began to spread through the mine. Fifty-eight men, working elsewhere, made it to the surface. Many would have been lost if John McCabe, a 15-year-old whose two brothers worked alongside him, had not put his own safety aside, and ran back down the shaft to warn them.

On the surface, a rescue attempt was launched to reach the men. The plans were ambitious and desperate. A new shaft was begun immediately above the Humph seam. Other men worked to reopen an old borehole which had been sunk long before the accident. A third effort was made to clear an underground road through from an existing shaft.

The borehole that was sunk, and a further three attempts that followed it, had to be abandoned after shifting moss bent the lining tubes. The moss also made a new shaft impossible, and forced underground rescue work to be halted. As the families of the men gathered at the pit head, hope began to fade.

A full 24 hours after the men had been trapped, a fifth borehole penetrated the area where they had been working. It showed the water level had risen dramatically, and a suffocating gas known as ''black damp'' was detected. The men underground would have been unlikely to survive more than half an hour, breathing air poisoned by black damp.

Two days after the inrush of moss, a sixth borehole reached the Humph seam. It showed the water to be nearly nine feet high, and ended all hope of finding any survivors. Two fathers died next to their sons, one leaving another six children. Three brothers, Leslie, Alex, and William Gilchrist, were lost. Three sisters also lost their husbands.

Bernard McAdams, just 14 years old, died on his very first day at work. Another 14-year-old, James Sneddon, who had worked in the mine for a mere three days, died while his father fought in France. On the surface, all in all, 21 children were left fatherless.

It was not until the August 27, 18 days after the initial influx of moss, that the first body was recovered. William Marshall was found by his brother. As one of the search party, Thomas Marshall spotted a crevice in the wall, and a pair of heels showing. William had crawled into the hole in a futile attempt to escape the rush of earth and muddy water. The search continued.

By September 21, eight bodies had been found. Eleven more were never recovered.

In the Greengairs of the present day lives Angus McArthur, himself a retired miner. Born nearly 20 years after the Stanrigg disaster, he has campaigned ceaselessly over the past three decades to have a memorial built to the men who died. For many years his neighbour was the sister of the three Gilchrist brothers who lost their lives in the Stanrigg pit. He says: ''I used to listen to the old lady talking. I didn't say I was doing anything without telling her. I said 'I'd like to get maybe a wee memorial up there', so as they could've went over there. If we had a wee memorial up there, someone could have gone there, and said 'that's where the place is'.''

His feeling for the miners of 80 years ago is intense: ''In those days they had to walk it, there were no baths, and wee reekie lights. I don't know how they did it. One or two of the boys just left school on the Friday, went in on the Monday, and were trapped. That's what kept me going. I can imagine the boys going over on the Monday, going to their work on the first morning. They'd be proud, going to work with their fathers, their brothers.

''I heard some people saying 'they [the trapped miners] could have done this and that'. I don't know if I could have done it. Like if a ship's sinking. There's only a very, very few brave people. It's all right once you know, saying I could have done this, and I could have done that. I've seen them when there's a wee bit of panic. No experience in the world could have dealt with that. Even old miners. If there's no way out, there's no way. It doesn't matter who you are.''

The Stanrigg miners seem to have become belated victims of the privatisation of the coal industry. The responsibility for erecting a memorial originally lay with British Coal. Alongside it was Monklands District Council. But following denationalisation, British Coal's responsibilities were passed to Scottish Coal, and when Scotland's authorities were reorganised, Monklands was transformed into North Lanarkshire Council. Suddenly plans for a memorial, already decades overdue, were swamped by the tide of change.

While no mining is allowed on what is now a designated grave, the drive to extract coal continues unabated all around the area where the men are entombed. British Coal made its commitment to erect the memorial as part of a planning application for the Drumshangie open cast site, which lies near Greengairs village, and extends to surround the old Stanrigg colliery. But the Drumshangie contract was awarded to GM Mining, a joint business venture between Gillespie Mining and David Murray, the chief executive of Rangers football club.

Despite having lost out to GM Mining, Scottish Coal claims not to have shirked its responsibility. Te company told The Herald Magazine: ''When Scottish Coal took over in 1995, we were happy to honour this obligation [the commitment made by British Coal to erect the memorial]. The memorial stone has been commissioned, and is ready to be erected on the site as soon as the appropriate planning permission is granted.''

However, there is a sticking point. North Lanarkshire Council says the application for planning permission has been received, and it foresees no problem with it. But the council's planning department says, as the proposed site for the memorial is on a bend in the road, it is essential that a lay-by, where people can park to visit the commemorative stone, is built before the memorial can be put in place.

Many people in the community have concerns about the proposed lay-by, which they say could become another unauthorised rubbish dump, like so much of the area. But Gus McArthur believes that's a minor problem: ''The council can stop rubbish being dumped. If they'd employ sometime to fine them [the fly-tippers] for a couple of weekends, they wouldn't be long in stopping it.

''I feel it's a blocking tactic by the council. The council's putting #100,000 [cost] on the lay-by, to make it look expensive so they've no money to do it. They don't need to spend that amount of money. Put it this way, the parking's not necessary if we're not going to get the memorial. If they're not going to give us the lay-by, and we get the memorial, good and well. But if you're going to get schoolchildren to go over from Greengairs, or Plains, or Caldercruix, in a bus, you need them to get off the road. You just need enough for four cars or a mini-bus. It can be done, there's no doubt about it.

''As far as I'm concerned, Scottish Coal have done their part, they abided by the rules, and they were put out of the Drumshangie open cast, so they've no machines to move over [to build the lay-by]. GM Mining took over the responsibilities of Scottish Coal, so they're entitled to chip in with money. If Scottish Coal had been over there in Drumshangie, the council wouldn't have been spending any money, because Scottish Coal would have done it.''

For its part, GM Mining does not appear to believe it has a responsibility to contribute towards the commemorative site. A spokesman for the company says: ''If this memorial is something that is close to the hearts of the community, then that is something we would obviously support. As far as we are aware, the commitment to erect the memorial, and build the relevant car parking, is well down the road between Scottish Coal and the local council. No-one has informed us otherwise.''

Scottish Coal says its commitment was to commission the memorial, which it has done. With regard to the issue of the lay-by, the most the company will say is that discussions are ongoing with those concerned.

Next July will see the 80th anniversary of the Stanrigg mining disaster. Few of those who remember those dreadful events will be there to witness it. But Gus McArthur hopes by then at least, the site will have a memorial to show what took place. ''That's all I ever wanted, that wee memorial. And if I get it, that's my life. As my wife says, 'That's all you've got to fight for.' We want a fair deal.'' With a memorial stone lying in a yard in Edinburgh, Gus McArthur is hoping arguments over a lay-by won't deal the final blow to hopes for a fitting commemoration to the 19 men and boys, 11 of whom as yet have no marked resting place.