大象传媒

I left school in July 1944 and having been a member of 1495 ATC Squadron for some years, I assumed I would be called up for the R.A.F. but this was not to be.

Ernest Bevin who was minister of Labour and National Service in the wartime coalition government under Winston Churchill's premiership was personally responsible for keeping the country's industrial production going and Coal mining was the key. Because of his Conscription Act many miners had been called up for the Armed Forces (as many as 80.000 has been mentioned) and having gained their freedom from this notoriously lowly paid and dangerous industry, very few accepted his invitation to return.

Without coal, the war machine would grind to a halt and at that time (1943) home production was virtually our only source of energy, there being little or no prospect of imported material. Bevin therefor made mining a reserved occupation but this still left a huge shortfall of men.

He devised a method to secure replacements with a ballot based on the final digit of each newly registered man's call up number. The story goes that monthly or twice monthly he asked one of the Ministry of Labour secretaries to select a number between "0" and "9" and the 10% of men whose mobilisation numbers ended with this figure were directed into coal mining instead of the Armed Forces. The first of these ballots took place in November 1943.

To learn the trade, a training scheme was introduced and I received a rail warrant and instructions to report to Oakdale Training Centre. This involved a train journey to Newport Monmouthshire, and on to a small village up the valley called Crumlin, then a short bus journey to Oakdale itself. We were billeted in a large hostel near the village in Nissan huts containing possibly 20 beds, each with a storage locker.

We were woken at 6.30am for breakfast and then walked the short distance to the training centre, where for three weeks we were instructed on the "do's" and "don'ts" of underground work with particular reference to safety measures which, for dubious reasons, were rigidly enforced. The fourth and final week we were finally taken down Oakdale housecoal pit which was next to the working colliery proper.

The first descent in the cage in total darkness was a scary experience. The landing, however, was a model of precision which certainly settled the nerves. We were given a guided tour of this static show pit where there were no real working areas - little did we know then how different the real thing would be, from this highly sanitised demonstration world.

A friend from school who had become a become a Bevin Boy a few months earlier found me lodgings in Blackwater a much larger village over in the next valley. My landlady was Mrs. Walters a short plump little lady whose husband had recently been injured underground and was trying to work his ticket from mining with appropriate compensation., but the Tredegar Iron & Coal Co. who owned the pits were having none of this so their only income was his meagre sick pay which was why a lodger was required, this unemployment caused me another problem.
Because of his attitude his employers had suspended his regular deliveries of cheep coal, which meant real difficulties for his wife with cooking and heating. Luckily she had a cooker which she used instead of the coal fired range but hot water was another matter altogether, since there were no pithead baths at the colliery I was assigned to in a village called Ynysddu.

I will have to jump ahead at this point to when I returned to my digs from work on my first day, black, sweaty, and in filthy clothes. There was a long tin bath in the dining room which Mrs.Walters had already started filling with kettles of hot water from the cooker. She must have been working hard at this for some time because without coal for heating the bathroom was useless. Hobsons choice meant I had to strip off and get into the bath and from memories of films like "The Proud Valley" and "The Stars Look Down" , I knew it was top half first. This done I stood up to deal with what was left when Mrs. Walters came in with another kettle of hot water. She didn't turn a hair - unlike myself - and told me later how her miner "Da" had always washed in this way and she often scrubbed his back while "Mam" was cooking in the kitchen. Next day when I arrived home she had spent probably several hours boiling kettles and carrying them upstairs to fill the bath. She was a very kind lady, her husband eventually realised he could not win so he shortly returned to mining as a surface worker and the coal deliveries were restored.

After the pristine condition of the demonstration pit, we were faced with reality on our first Monday. Mrs. Walters called me for breakfast at 5.30 and then I walked the half mile or so to Blackwood Station all down hill which meant a tough uphill climb after a hard days work on my return. I caught the workman's train which came from Tredegar and stopped at every station down the line to pick up miners - there were so many pits in those days. There were wooden benches instead of seats and on Mondays - and only Mondays - everyone wore cleanish working clothes which had been washed after Saturday's shift (we worked a six day week until Nationalisation) and dried on Sunday ready for Monday. We had to provide all our own working clothes except the hard helmet and were given a voucher for a pair of steel toe-capped safety boots. We were also given extra clothing coupons because boots never lasted a full year especially if you worked in a "wet pit".

There were just two train stops for me, just Pontllanfraith and then the pit at Ynysddu, which involved a steep climb down from the station to the pithead. Once there were issued with a large and heavy safety lamp containing a battery which was numbered. Each lamp when recharging over night was hung under its corresponding number. At the end of each shift we handed them back in exchange for a numbered brass token, the lamp man could then quickly see if any one was unaccounted for and easily identify the missing man who might have been injured or even worse. These lamps were carried swinging from the belt and in time we mastered the rolling gait which prevented the inside of our knees being battered black and blue.

In retrospect the thing I hated most in my early days was having to put on filthy clothes every morning which got progressively dirtier from Monday to Saturday.

Working hours were 7.00am wind down and 2.30pm wind up on the day shift and if you arrived at the pithead after the last manned cage had been sent down you were sent home because there was an immediate switching to coal drams. There were two winding shafts and it was either men in the cage or coal - never men in one and coal in the other. Wages per week when training at Oakdale were 拢 2 = 4 = 00 (拢 2 - 20p today). But once you were an official mineworker and signed up with the union this increased to 拢 2 = 12 = 00 (拢 2 - 60p) for surface work and 拢 3 = 00 = 00 for underground. This might seem to make surface work look the better deal but on a cold wet winter morning with the wind sweeping across the tips you realised that underground had its advantages.

We were working on the "420" seem - that is 420 yards below ground - and once we reached pit bottom there was a good half hours walk to the coal face. During this journey, pairs of air - doors had to be negotiated, these were wooden frames with tar covered sacking to ensure a tight fit - which completely sealed the tunnel and controlled the air circulation. The secret was to open the first door and for everyone to get inside it, close it and then open the second, the last man through closing it behind them. On no account should both sets of doors be open at the same time - actually they too frequently were - because the air came roaring through unhindered, bringing with it a whirlwind of coal dust and some astonishing comments from those unfortunate enough to be caught in the turbulence.

It was very educational, production proper started when we reached the face and the "piece workers" - the colliers who actually cut the coal and were paid by the (cubic) "yard" were - of course, always impatient to start. The "420" was a long face, a good six feet in height stretching out both sides of the in -road making a "T" formation. Each collier was given a specific length of coal face called a "Stint" - I think it was six yards long - and the days work entailed moving forward approx. One and a half yards into the coal itself.

The cubic capacity of coal cut was the basis of the weeks wages but there were many additional ways of augmenting this. The number of posts (props) put up, the amount of "muck" (non coal) handled and compensation for mechanical breakdowns were just three and these were fought for individually between each collier and the overman every Thursday until a compromise amount was arrived at. The arguments were extremely violent vocally and verbally personal but never reached physical violence since this was the cardinal sin underground and would involve being sent back to the surface with restrictions on being allowed back to work or even a total ban. The overman being a company employee obviously beat down the colliers claims and they ended up eyeball to eyeball but I am told that in the evening they would be drinking together in the Miners Institute where beer prices were subsidised by a deduction of a few pence from wages and women were barred. It was very much a male dominated society and introduced us to a dangerous philosophy at an impressionable age.

When sufficient drams were full, they were shackled together and hauled away on rails by steel ropes operated by compressed air engines. They were manoeuvered stage by stage on their outward journey by men stationed at strategic points to remove one rope and attach their own to take the train to the next exchange. each section had a bell system to advise the next what was happening. This was dangerous work and severe injuries could result from carelessness. To make each switchover safer , the train was held stationary at changeover by the insertion of a piece of wood called a Sprag into the dram wheel spokes. Occasionally a train would jump the rails and block the road stopping production. These two belts were securely anchored at the far end of each face by Billy Thomas who was responsible for all the mechanical work on the "420" including breakdowns. Each circulated round a drum but they were usually in such a poor condition with quite large pieces missing that when colliers shovelled on their coal, quantities of the smaller material fell through to the lower level and was carried back down the track to the drum (which was called "the box") and unless this area was kept clear the belt would jam and stop production. My job was to look after this "box" on the right hand belt and this consisted of shovelling dust and small coal back into the empty waste behind me.

Bending down in this very dusty atmosphere meant my back and lungs were taking the brunt of it and the after effects, in retrospect, are part of my health problems today. Occasionally the drum did seize up bringing the belt to a standstill which meant I was showered with far from affectionate comments from those men whose wages I was putting in jeopardy. There was one man - his name was Tom Sadler - who never swore and never took me to task. More to the point he was very fair in such situations telling his mates to understand I had no wish to be there but was helping them to the best of my (albeit limited) ability and he usually won them over. The engineers would show up - they were always sympathetic - reverse the belt to clear the drum and work would restart. I am ashamed to admit that in those early days I was sometimes very close to tears of frustration and pain.

Tom Sadler was truly my much needed guardian angel and when he had his personal tussles with the overman to safeguard his wages, as I said earlier, I never heard him swear but this did not make him easy meat and he lost nothing in his weekly self - preservation encounters.

Our overman was nicknamed "Choc" because he was always begging sweet ration coupons for his children but it took some imagination to envisage him as a family man at home. He appeared a monster who would do anything to same the company a shilling at the expense of the hard working collier.

The colliers had three basic tools - the Mandril (their coal pick), the Shovel and the Axe. The later was used for cutting to length and erecting posts to support the roof, a job that ensured the safety of us all. Obviously since the coal face moved forward One and a half yards each day it left a corresponding empty space and this needed to be refilled as quickly as possible for safety. It was a virtual impossibility because at least three quarters of the volume had originally been taken up by coal. However on top of the coal itself there was a layer of "muck" - a hard and heavy stone which the colliers shovelled into yesterdays empty space which was called the "Gob".

I had by now learnt how to fight my corner and surprisingly early on could argue with those in authority to get fair pay, Anglo - Saxon verbals of course. On occasion, I was able to exchange the dreaded dust of "the box" for working in the "Gob. This involved using the "muck stone" mentioned earlier to build a dry supporting wall and filling behind it with any waste material that could be found (This dry walling skill I acquired is still in evidence in our garden). This job was made easier as time went on because the proportion of coal and muck changed to something like two to one which of course upset the colliers as there was less coal to provide their wages and more muck, the handling of which paid very poorly in comparison. Eventually just before I was Demobbed the "420" face was abandoned because the seam hit a fault so instead of a horizontal wall of coal it suddenly curved up into the roof making it impossible to work.

returning to "The Gob" , this went back much further than just the previous days working advance and nature took its inevitable course as the roof gradually came down to reclaim the empty space. You could hear it creaking and groaning when the machinery stopped. Many of the wooden posts (or props) that were erected were left in the "Gob" and as the roof settled they continued to take the strain and a loud crack often indicated one breaking in half. These Props were precious - supplies normally came from Canada and Scandinavia and these sources were obviously closed. A "save and Rescue" system was in force which was where Tom Jones the "Buller - Man" came in. The "Buller" was a ratchet actuated method of extracting wooden props by anchoring one end of a chain to a firmly fixed post and the other end to the prop to be saved and then moving the long handle back and forward to tension and pull the prop out. There was considerable skill in knowing which props to tie up to and how many could be salvaged without causing a dangerous collapse but sometimes removal made for a spectacular roof fall far back in the "Gob". When Tom yelled "Get Out" you did not hang about. he was often able to use his skill to create a controlled collapse to fill the open space left by our daily advance and I never knew him to put a foot wrong - thank goodness! Like many miners he chewed tobacco all day to reduce the dust intake and spat it out as a thick brown juice. I tried it just once!

The colliers were paid a fixed amount for each prop they erected and there were safety rules regarding spacing. As the war progressed stocks of imported props were used up and so British timber was tried. What a difference! - the Canadian and Scandinavian timber was cleaned up and sawn to length rather like miniature telegraph poles which made stock piling and handling so easy. British timber was in general, the total reverse being, in essence, small and not so small trees with just the major boughs removed. Which obviously took more working time to cut to size and erect. As you can imagine, time being money, the arguments on assessment day became even more aggressive and lengthy.

To be continued.

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