The story of Cowdenbeath Civic Week, Cowdenbeath Gala and the roots of this special community event dates back more than 100 years, as evidenced in our archive pages.

Our archive entries for some of the earliest years describe the Miners Gala, or ‘Pit Treat’ as having their beginning as a celebration of the miners securing the 8-hour working day in the late 1800’s. The Miners Gala would have a venue agreed in advance and publicised around all the pits in a particular area, with places such as Aberdour, Burntisland, Edinburgh and Dunfermline being favourites. These events would be an outing for miners and their families, with bus loads of miners and their families heading away for a picnic in the chosen town. The event would also include speeches from those people keen on political change and workers rights, often taking to the stage with a microphone to the celebration of the gathered masses!

In local communities like Cowdenbeath, these ‘Pit Treats’ evolved over time and as the mine industry slowed, with the Co-operative Society playing a huge role as it was their ‘Store Treat’ where many of our modern traditions started. The annual parade of bands was a huge spectacle, with every school bairn marching in their finest clothes, usually organised into school classes with their teacher keeping a close eye on behaviour as they marched through the town.

When the parade reached the public park, it was time for their Gala Bag, which usually contained something like a bun or a cake, maybe some sweets in later years, and some milk all available for free. By the mid-1900’s the bairns would also get a Gala Penny – something the kids could use in local shops to buy themselves a treat.

As the Co-operative Society began to decline and the shops closed, it was down to local communities to organise themselves and get their Galas together. This presented its own challenges, bringing people from across the town together to organise a large scale event for 5000-6000 bairns was no small feat!

Records for that time are obviously difficult to piece together, but we do have some notes about a Civic Week sub committee, sitting under the Cowdenbeath Community Council, from 1979. These indicate the committee would be chaired by David Stevenson and that a previous committee had been established prior to 1979.

Thanks to Jackie Allan, one of the original members of Cowdenbeath Community Council, for preserving these documents and to the current community council for providing them for this archive.

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Also of note are the earlier 1977 Inaugural Minutes of the very first Cowdenbeath Community Council meeting, where amongst the list of attendees is a “William M Young, JP”.

We believe this is the same person who had the Citizen of the Year Rosebowl named after him, so he must have been a very prominent and eminent figure in the town, although sources of information about him seem to be limited.