Joe Corrie

Who was Joe Corrie?

Joe Corrie was a Scottish miner, poet and playwright best known for his radical, working class plays.

He was born in Slamannan, Stirlingshire in 1894. His family moved to Cardenden in the Fife coalfield when Corrie was still an infant and he started work at the pits in 1908. He died in Edinburgh in 1968.

Shortly after the First World War, Corrie started writing. His articles, sketches, short stories and poems were published in prominent socialist newspapers and journals, including Forward and The Miner.

Corrie's volumes of poetry include The Image O' God and Other Poems, Rebel Poems and Scottish Pride and Other Poems. T. S. Eliot described him as "the greatest Scots poet since Burns".

He turned to writing plays during the General Strike, 1926. His one-act plays and sketches were performed by the Bowhill Players, an amateur company of miners who performed to raise money for local soup kitchens. The company operated professionally as the Fife Miner Players in 1928-31 under the management of comedian and theatrical agent, Hugh Ogilvie. Corrie's first play, Hogmanay was published by the Fife Miners' Reform Union. His full-length play, In Time O'Strife, depicting the General Strike's effect on the Fife mining community, toured Fife mining villages and musical halls all over Scotland.