A tartan has been commissioned as a tribute to the men who died during the construction of a hydro storage power station in Argyll and Bute.

The design, based on the Clan MacColl tartan sett, uses 15 strands of a special dark blue thread to represent those who lost their lives building the unique Cruachan Power Station.

Ian Kinnaird, of Drax Group, the company that owns the station, said: "Building this unique power station was an astonishing feat of engineering, completed in challenging conditions.

"The work was physically demanding and at times, incredibly dangerous. Sadly, during the course of the construction, 15 men lost their lives.

"When we were commissioning this new tartan, we decided it was a fitting tribute to incorporate 15 dark blue threads in memory of those who tragically died – many of whom were very young."

Between 1959 and 1965, a 4000-strong workforce built the power station on the shore of Loch Awe in Argyll and Bute – 1,300 of them were known as ‘Tunnel Tigers’ - the men at the forefront of the work.

They drilled, blasted and cleared the rocks from the inside of the mountain.

Hollowing out the Ben Cruachan mountain was done by hand-drilling two to three-metre-deep holes into the granite rockface.

Gelignite was packed into the drilled holes and detonated – blasted rocks were then removed by bulldozers, trucks and shovels, before drilling began on a fresh section of exposed granite.

Ian MacLean, from Oban, was a 20-year-old joiner when he started working at Cruachan in 1962.

He said: “I worked as a joiner on the roof of what is the machine hall now. The noise from the blasting was incredible – you didn’t just hear it, you felt it too.

“There was a lot of dust, but what bothered us the most was the smell – it was horrible. There were fumes from the explosives as well as the dump truck’s diesel engines that were running all the time – and we didn’t have masks to wear. Some days the air was so thick you could only see a few yards in front of where you were standing.”

In total, 20km of tunnels and chambers were excavated, including the kilometre-long entrance tunnel and the 91-metre-long, 36-metre-high machine hall.

The 77-year-old said, despite the conditions he worked in, it was an interesting job.

He added: “When I finished as an apprentice joiner I was earning £9 a week – when I started working at Cruachan I was on treble that. The conditions we were working in were tough – but I met some great people and we were young. It’s just what we did.”

Polish and Irish labourers worked alongside Scots, as well as displaced Europeans, prisoners of the second world war and even workers from as far away as Asia.

The 15 men who died are remembered at Cruachan in a mural on the wall of the turbine hall at the heart of the power station and now visitors to the award-winning ‘Hollow Mountain’ visitor centre will see the new tartan waistcoats worn by guides.

Sarah Cameron, manager of the Hollow Mountain visitor centre at Cruachan, said: “Our visitor centre guides will proudly wear the tartan on their waistcoats and continue to tell the stories about how this unique power station was built.

“It’s important that we remember the 15 men who died and the many others who were injured building this unique power station.”