Early Years in Scotland

James Russell was born in Newcraighall, Midlothian, Scotland on 29th April, 1909.  He was the youngest of Charles and Margaret Russell's eight children [5 boys & 3 girls].  Charles and his five sons all worked "down the pit" in Scotland.  The youngest of the sons William [Bill b. 1907] and James [Jim b. 1909] began working in the pit as wheelers when they were about 14 years old.  Charles had very definite ideas about working conditions in the mines and if the conditions or pay didn't suit, then he would leave one pit and move on to another taking his five sons with him.  They worked in the coal mines in the Edinburgh/Lothians area.
 
Jim's elder brothers, Charlie, Adam and Harry [15] enlisted to serve in WWI as did his brother in law George Murray.  This had a deep and profound effect on Jim as he recalled later in life that he heard George, on leave at the time, tell Charles [snr] that he would not be coming back from Europe again as where they were sending him they were "killing them like flies".  George Murray was killed in Europe survived by his wife Margaret [Jim's eldest sister] and their three children.

Immigration to Australia

After WWI Jim's brothers wanted to emigrate to Canada and work in the coal mines there, but their mother had a brother living in Kurri Kurri, NSW, and she asked them to go there instead. Jim's sister, Mary, emigrated to New Zealand with a group of young ladies who were going out there to become domestic servants.  In 1921 the brothers left Scotland bound for Australia. They encouraged the rest of the family to follow them and when Jim was sixteen years old [1925] the rest of the family emigrated to Australia.  They travelled aboard the Themistocles which was a steamship. As they passed through the English Channel, the waves were not the only things heaving.  The family was able to recover enough to enjoy the Bay of Biscay as the weather and seas were calmer. After a while Jim began to grow bored with the casual life at sea and was soon down in the engine room shoveling coal.  
 
When the Themistocles docked in Cape Town, Jim was amazed at the sight of scores of men engaged in manually bunkering coal and loading other cargo onto the ships. "It was like a human conveyor belt. One after the other they carried baskets of coal on their shoulders and tipped them into the hold, then off down the gangway to reload."
 
The family arrived in Sydney mid-February, 1925. They had to wait until after dark to take the train from Central Station to Kurri Kurri.   Jim says this was because Adam didn't want them to see what they had come to but perhaps he had wanted them to see that Kurri Kurri had street lights [recently installed].
 
The family bought a house, 200 Maitland Street, Kurri Kurri.  They were packed to the rafters – Mum and Dad, Adam, Charlie, Harry, Jenny, Bill and Jim; and George, & grandchildren Peggy and Charlie Murray – three generations.
 
Tragically Jim's mother, Margaret, died in September of the same year of perniscious anemia which is curable today with a vitamin B12 shot.