Grave honour for rail driver who perished in silvery Tay

IT took more than 130 years to arrive.

Now the final resting place of the train driver who perished in the Tay Bridge disaster is finally to be marked, thanks to his surviving descendants in Edinburgh and efforts of locals in the Fife town of Leslie.

David Mitchell was one of the 75 souls to die when the locomotive he was driving plunged into the icy waters of the Tay, just after Christmas in 1879.

At the time the bridge was the longest in the world at two-and-a-half miles across and was a celebrated feat of Victorian engineering, though an inquiry later blamed engineer Thomas Bouch for failing to take account of the strong winds that destroyed the structure.

Mr Mitchell's body was found washed up on a nearby beach nine weeks after the tragedy and was buried at the cemetery in Leslie, where it remained unmarked ever since.

Last year, the Tay Rail Bridge Disaster Memorial Trust set about rectifying that but first had to trace Mr Mitchell's living relatives to gain permission because of the laws governing grave site ownership. They traced his great-grandson, David Leighton, pictured below, to Edinburgh and he was stunned to receive the call.

The 66-year-old Craiglockhart resident said although he had some knowledge of the tragedy and his great-grandfather's role in it, the experience had been a real eye opener.

He said: "We were aware of it but we don't live with it every day. On my mum's (David Mitchell's granddaughter] side, there's a lot of information I didn't know about.

"My uncle hasn't been up to Scotland for many years, but he still holds the driver's watch that was taken from the Tay after so many months and it was still going when I last saw it."

He added: "When the accident happened, there was not the money around to put up a gravestone. In a sense it was a little bit neglected. I have to admit, I feel slightly embarrassed that we never put a stone up. I'm not financing the stone entirely, the people of Leslie wanted to do this."

Mr Mitchell's family was buried in Leslie, where his family moved after his death. His eldest child, also David, relocated to Edinburgh and started a family in the Capital.

The Leslie group originally expected to have to raise 2000 for the headstone, but its efforts were helped by Fife Council and a local funeral director, who waived the 1200 payment to install a concrete base for the headstone which will include the phrase: "From the people of Leslie, spring 2011."

An unveiling ceremony is due to be held in Leslie next month and will be attended by Mr Leighton and his son.

Trust member Ian Nimmo White said Mr Mitchell had been blameless.

He said: "Even in those days, there was a clockwork black box documenting the driver's movements. He had done nothing he shouldn't have done.

"It was a horrendous night. I think he shouldn't have been allowed to go, but when the green lights go you have to obey.

"There's an account from David's daughter, Isabella, of drivers warning him to watch the bridge and him responding, 'If it wasn't for my family then I wouldn't go'."

The Tay Bridge disaster did end up being beneficial to people in Edinburgh.

Mr Nimmo White said: "The Forth Bridge is a great wonder of engineering because of the Tay rail disaster, because the engineer that built the Tay got pushed off the project and they brought in a new man called Barlow who was doubly careful."

The Trust now has its sights on building a memorial to the Tay Bridge disaster and has started fundraising the 50,000 it needs for the project.