While the war was over we still had austerity for it was deemed expedient to rebuild Germany for the coming war against Russia, politics! So, we still had slave labour as the control and engagement act tied you to your present job or any authority chose to send you. And conscription to the services at eighteen. I was an apprentice electrician with nothing against Russia and finished playing at soldiers when a child and had the option of going in the merchant navy or down the mines which was my choice.

Initially I was drafted to the NCB training centre at Askern near Doncaster and nearby colliery, it was well run and the course lasted a couple of weeks, most of the course came from southern Ireland attracted by the initial £50 grant, one crafty paddy who had a “gammy leg” had passed the medical by sending his brother to take it, all I got was a pair of boots!

Then I was sent to Sutton Manor colliery near St. Helens about eighteen miles cycle ride from home and the wind seemed to be against me both ways. Later on, I got a motorbike (a chapter in itself). My first impressions of the colliery were not encouraging, the concrete and corrugated iron structures were covered by the all-pervading black dust and not a trace of greenery, even the weeds had given up. The shafts were wound by two steam engines by Yates and Thom made in 1914 and the sub level shaft by electricity where I was sent, it meant ages waiting to get down and return making in effect a 12-hour day and 5 1/2-day week. Going down you squatted in the cage the gates clanged down and you kept tight hold of your lamp as you dropped down feeling light, otherwise it would fly up and out. My first job was at pit bottom pulling empties from the cage and admitting full ones, marshalling the empties into journeys of fourteen and sending them “inby” you got occasional stiff ones with bent axles or tight ones due to the crude bearings being open and lubricated by passing over a grease box full of black “goo” running mainly on dust.

Then I was sent to bottom tunnel this was being driven to exploit a new face lower than the one being worked and forked off from the main haulage, it had no lighting like the main haulage so I had only the familiar oil flame safety lamp with its feeble 1 CP rays. I was surprised to learn that in the past the miners were charged for the oil used in the lamps and extra if overtime worked. The lamp was needed to detect gas, the heavy than air would extinguish the flame if lowered into a pocket lying at floor level and the presence of the lighter methane in pockets on the roof, when raised aloft the yellow flame would be topped with a lambent bluish cap highly explosive. In the olden days when detected a person called a fireman wrapped in wet sacking would lie on the floor and raise a naked flame on a stick to burn off the gas, the shot firer was still known by this term.

Upon nationalisation we were issued with electric lamps ,the first type were the size and weight of a couple of house bricks (the proper ones not these “Lego” metric ones) these resembled a miniature lighthouse having the glass like a little salmon paste pot at the top and the illumination no better than the oil lamp, then the excellent cap lamp came in which the battery fitted on your belt and light clipped to your helmet clipped to your helmet, made by Oldham Wheat, the reflectors were ak aluminium but the bosses had chrome ones being brighter (good for you could see them coming)

The main haulage rope was about an inch in diameter made of steel and ran continuously as it serviced the various districts so you did not stop it to “lash on” a journey. The rope lay on top of the boxes and you took a length of chain hooked to the boxes, stood in front of them and wrapped it round the rope and put the eight into the jaw of the big hook that was at the end and stepped back smartly as it tightened, otherwise you would become an accident report. In places sloping downhill you put a tail chain on as well.

Bottom tunnel was my next place of work, it branched from the main well-lit level at a “y” junction and was being driven to access a new coal face. The long span of the roof was supported by old tramway metals bought second-hand as trams became obsolescent, you only see the top of the tram tracks and like the iceberg most of the girder is hidden underground, the weight of the strata used to crush the ends in time and when replacing one was done manually there being no lifting apparatus available, it was lifted in stages lodged onto old railway sleepers a bit at a time by our shoulders the row of men “flintstone fashion” at each side. Talk about putting your shoulders to the wheel

Bottom tunnel had a separate haulage rope driven by an ancient worn out ships winch no doubt bought second-hand from the scrapyards (the coal owners did not like spending money) the rope lay on the crankshaft and eventually sawed the 6-inch diameter shaft in half as there was no oil can or provision for lubrication. It only saw oil when you pinched a drop from the batch sent to the loader at the face. It was bedded on girders at head height and controlled by a wheel valve. Situated so that your head lay directly in line with the cylinder end so should this blow off decapitation would be the result. To signal the winder a “knocker” was provided, a line of fencing wire ran down the tunnel hung from the roof connected to a crude iron hammer dropping on an iron plate one knock for stop” two “go” three “reverse” complicated by you had to gather up the slack wire before signalling.

When you marshalled the journey of full ones you had wound out they had to be sent off on the main level and due to there being a “dead spot” relied on their speed to run them round the curve reaching the main rope, this was facilitated by the practice of pissing on the turn rails to reduce friction.

At snap time, I used to switch off my lamp (forbidden practice and fineable) and have a short nap, when awakened the blackness and absolute silence caused me to feel completely disoriented, where are am I? An eerie experience. One time as I dozed I felt just a faint tickling round my mouth, it was a little mouse after the crumbs from my sandwich, mice occasionally dropped down the shaft and being so light were not harmed but had no means of returning to surface, a mystery was what they ate.

The tunnel was semi-circular in section the roof supported by steel girders of RSJ section in two halves joined by a fishplate at centre, at about 3 feet spacing a spare fishplate served as your sole toolkit to hammer in loose rail spikes etc talk about “make do and mend” another job for me was to turn on the water for the face drillers. These drills were like the ones you see on road repairs with the actual drill having a hollow centre to make the water kill the dust, the machine itself being air driven like the engines. As water supplied from the surface had much too high pressure a reservoir (actually an old boiler) was set on girders by the engine, it had an inlet valve from surface, an air valve to pressure the water, and a vent valve at the top to allow for filling, it was vital for the inlet to be shut off when filled to stop the high pressure of gravity. When filling you just waited till water spouted from the vent at top then closed the inlet and vent and opened the air pressure of 90 psi -simple.

The face was worked by drilling a fixed pattern of holes that were charged with polar ammonal explosive and these had detonators inserted as they were charged and then sealed with stiff clay rammed down to prevent blow back. The detonators had each a time delay to blow the centre first and then the others ensuring the rock blew into suitable bits for loading which were shovelled onto the Conway shovel, a massive air driven machine which scooped the rock by two revolving steel arms and the belt dropped it into the boxes. It reminded me of one of Heath Robinson’s devices but it worked.

The procedure of firing was to couple all the detonators in series to the cable remote from the face and the shot firer would connect the igniter box, switch to test, showing continuity, shout fire three times, then turn the key, counting the shots as they separately went off, a miss shot would be very dangerous but very rare. Firing was usually done at “snap time” to let the dust settle, and all would be crowded the nearest refuge hole, there was a fatal accident at another pit when the clay seal baked like a brick blew out and hit the shot firer who was outside the refuge.

I remember one time when we were going back to the face after snap as we approached there was a rumble then a crash as a slab of rock the size and shape of a grand piano fell from the roof, down pit you are never far from death.

I was taken from bottom tunnel and sent to top one that branched from the top face haulage and had a small second-hand winch no doubt ships ex-scrapyard, the junction where the tunnel branched off was lit by an air lamp which resembled a goldfish bowl with a casting on top carrying an air driven dynamo lighting the bulb in the glass, very clever. Cap lamp only in the tunnel.

Occasionally the air supply contained a small quantity of water, where it came from was a mystery but it soon worked out without causing stoppage. On one occasion my engine ran in jerks very slowly and water spouted like two fountains from the upward facing bushing exhaust ports of the two cylinders and it kept on gushing which stopped me winding, I went out to the junction and saw the air lamp just a faint glow the bowl full of water, only lacking the goldfish. Walking down to the face I saw the gang had taken off the big air hose to the loading machine and two were holding it like a fire hose and water everywhere like a fireman’s picnic! While they were trying to get rid of the water nobody was thinking of the cause, I went down to bottom tunnel where the engine was jerking round spouting the same jets from the ports, Albert was just winding the wheel valve which acted as a regulator stood with his head directly in line with the cylinder end, oblivious to the danger of the end blowing off and decapitating him, I went over to the vessel that supplied the water for the drills (old boiler) to find water spouting from the vent cock on top and when I checked the wheel valve that shut off the surface water supply it was fully open allowing the high pressure of gravity to flood the 90 psi air system and start to fill the air mains. Nobody else had the initiative to sort it out.

One of the jobs that fell to me was the moving of the telephone at the coal face. This was a heavy cast iron unit, intrinsically safe type and needed two men to lift it. You had a code of rings to select your hearer, winding the handle to operate, of course when it rang all stations picked up the phone, and when Bithell the colliery manager had come down inspecting everyone listened to voices butting in telling him his character much to his annoyance (he was a despicable character) the system was powered by LeClanche cells and it was necessary to scrape the zinc electrodes at intervals to clean them, the lines were the universal fencing wire strung from the sides of the tunnel in crude wooden supports. Quaint.

As the face advanced the haulage tunnel followed it and sloped steeply with short level sections for the belt loader, where the journey of four boxes were filled, these had to be lashed on with chains at front and back to restrain them and as they stood were held stationary by “scotches” an iron bar inserted through the wheels, additionally a “manker” was a further safety precaution being a length of rail hung from the roof in the path of the journey, it had to be lifted by a wire hanging in pulleys with a slab of wood as a handle when the boxes passed. Bill Thomas and I were carrying the phone unit upward at snap when the rope was stopped when there was a rumble and the rope shook, “quick into the manhole, runaways” shouted bill (he had more experience than me) we never saw the four full boxes pass just a blur and then there was an almighty crash followed by a cloud of black dust, we went down to find that at a short level stretch the boxes had taken off and hit the roof, a scene of chaos. Bill checked the roof to see it safe and as we stood we became aware of a light coming up which turned out to be an official who had the sinecure of counting the pit props etc a job made for him as he had a relative high up in the NCB, he was more shaken than us at his narrow escape. Why did the boxes run away with two safety devices? Because the scouser was too lazy to bother about them and had hung the manker up permanently and not even put a scotch in assuming that as the rope was not moving it was safe, then someone in another district had to shunt a journey and rang the rope “on” and as it laid on top of the four it dragged them onto the slope.

He was not a bit put out at the mess caused saying that he had scotched up and they had fallen out. He subsequently distinguished himself by taking home his lamp for a fancy-dress party going as a miner, this caused a major search of the mine as your lamp was proof of return to surface.

A rare occurrence was when a defect on the electric winding engine on the shaft caused a “walk out” via the safety tunnel which corkscrewed upwards, there was very little roof support so you could see the various types of strata, in one place the tunnelers had come across a tree the trunk stood vertical exposing vertical bark layers. One job I did not fancy was to go down to a pump set in a low winding tunnel that was bare rock with scant roof support, it was safe enough but you felt that should it ever cave in there was no chance of survival.

The two years and three months at the pit were the hardest work I have ever done and the miners the best people to work with, (the scousers excepted) but I was not sorry to get back as an electrician at Joe Ranks rat infested flour mills. One incident that sticks in my mind is that when riding home on my Francis Barnett motor cycle I passed an elderly gent pushing an autocycle (moped now called) and stopped to ask the trouble as any rider would, he said it had gone slower and had to pull the choke full on till it eventually expired, I was a complete learner knowing little about the mechanics of the engines but suspected dirt in the petrol system and did a brief clean then said “pedal it over” to my surprise the cylinder was loose and wobbling about on the piston , I tightened the four holding down nuts and it ran perfectly to his delight and he insisted in rewarding me with seven and sixpence (30 p) though I did not want to take anything.

While servicemen got a demob suit after they had left we miners did not even get a thank you letter.