大象传媒

THE COAL MINES.

On 4th December 1944 I was called up to go and work in the coalmines under the Bevin Boy Scheme, although I was in the Air Training Corps when I received my 鈥渃alling up鈥� papers. Nothing could be done as the Bevin Boys Scheme was by ballot, or so it was said. I received a letter from the Ministry of Labour to report to their officer at Kings Cross Station to collect a travel pass and then go by train to Doncaster. I met up with a number of other boys who were also going to join the mines. Most of us did not want to go, but as there was no option, we all more or less had to grin and bare it.

We boarded the 10.00 am train going north to Doncaster and I think we were quite a glum crowd. There were about 40 of us. When we got to Doncaster we had been told to make our way to North Bridge where another Ministry person would meet us. We were given instructions to get on a bus, which would take us to a place called Bentley, where we would be staying. By this time it was quite dark, but we boarded the bus and arrived at Bentley shortly afterwards.

The bus stopped outside the Miners Hostel, which was run by the Ministry of Labour, and this was to be our home for the next month. The hostel was a collection of Nissen huts all joined together by corridors and walkways. Some of the huts were dormitories and the others were the dining hall and the lounge and snack bar.

Upon arrival we were registered into the hostel and allocated our place to sleep. There were 20 in each dormitory and leading off from there were the washrooms and toilets. Each bed had a unit of a bedside table and a cupboard, where we were to store our belongings. The units were painted blue and looked quite decent. Having got rid of our things into the cupboards, which had a padlock on them, we went to the dining hall to have our evening meal. After the meal we relaxed in the lounge and had a cup of tea and a bun. There was a wireless in the lounge, where we could listen to any programme that took our fancy. The only control that we had on the wireless was a switch on the wall, which moved on to the programmes. The speaker was high up on the wall.

After a quite good nights sleep we were told to report outside the hostel at 8.00 am to be taken on a bus to the training colliery at Askern, which was a few miles away. The first impression of the colliery was quite an impact. A huge dirty building with smoke and steam belching out of it. In the half-light of the morning it look very menacing. The smell was appalling as it was a plant in which anthracite was made.

The weather was bitterly cold. On the first morning we were taken to the Miner鈥檚 Welfare for an introductory talk as to what was expected of us and we were issued with a pit helmet and pit boots. We then we went outside for our first morning of training. We were taught how to shackle pit tubs on to a moving steel hawser, which was not very easy, particularly with icy cold fingers. It was quite a dangerous operation, because if you didn鈥檛 do it properly you could loose your fingers! Another aspect of training was learning how to stop the tubs full of coal by using a metal or wooden bar, which you threw into the wheels. A lot of the time we just stood around getting colder and colder. I think that the instructors, who were miners, went off to get warm and a cup of tea, or something stronger.
After lunch we went back to the Miner鈥檚 Welfare for PE for and hour or so. Most of this, was doing press ups to strengthen the stomach muscles. I was hopeless at it, and so were a lot of the others. I had never done anything like it since leaving school, and had been employed sitting behind a desk for the previous two years.

Having had PE, we then went into another room to have talks on different aspects of mining, from safety in pits to geology and the various acts of Parliament governing mining. The lecturers were very 鈥淵orkshire鈥� and I found it almost impossible to understand them. They droned on and on and showed very old foggy lantern slides about mining, and I just couldn鈥檛 keep my eyes open and nodded off. Most of the other boys did the same. If you did wake up and looked around, you could see all the others in the same predicament!

After a week, we went down the pit for the first time. Only half a day at the start. It was a relief to get down there, as it was a great deal warmer. The first time going down was rather scary, and something none of us had experienced before. We got into the pit cage and then suddenly it dropped! What a sensation. You left your stomach up on the surface, whilst you were hurtling down and a rather alarming rate.

In the mine we were introduced to 鈥淪nowy鈥� and 鈥淏lackie鈥�, two pit ponies. It was the first time I had encountered pit ponies and I found them rather sweet. They were very well behaved, no doubt specially chosen. The training mine, was lit by electric lamps so we didn鈥檛 need pit lamps. We went out and about continuing our training in shackling tubs and trying to stop tubs, the same as we did on the surface, but as I said before, at least it was warm. I think that the main idea of the underground training was to get us used to going down in the cage and being completely enclosed in the pit.

Everything closed down for Christmas 1944, so all of the trainees went home until after New Year, when we returned to complete our training and then were posted to a working mine in the South Yorkshire coalfield. That is another story.

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