Windy Gully
September 12, 2015
Each year, on the anniversary of the disaster, a commemorative ceremony “96 Candles” is held at the Windy Gully cemetery at Mt Kembla.
This year, the Illawarra Union Singers were privileged to take part in the ceremony, singing two mining songs as part of the event. They performed “Windy Gully”, the song written by Illawarra playwright Wendy Richardson, who sang with the choir, in an arrangement by choir member Florence Rankin. The choir also sang “Working Man”, a song prompted by the stories of miners’ daily hardships, which became the unofficial anthem for coal miners everywhere.
Windy Gully gravestones