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When work restarted following a roof collapse at one of the coal seams, caused by a build-up of water, Bevin Boy Jack Hill recalls what happened next.
I often had the job of doggie in this district and hated having to walk crouched down with water dripping down one's neck and boots becoming waterlogged.
The track in this wet section was strengthened with timbers to keep the rails in a straight line and help clear the water away. Needless to say many derailments occurred here and it was the devil's own job to get things back to normal.
On a few occasions I was given a job on the loader and this involved holding the tubs steady under the end of the elevated conveyor belt to allow coal to spill in and fill them. Manoeuvring of the tubs was carried out on steel plates, as the operation moved on two metres every day, so a different set of muscles was called upon to swing tubs across.
One day I was holding the edge of a tub and a huge lump of coal fell into the bottom and sprang back up to pin my finger against the side. The split nail is still a reminder of the hurt once the numbness had worn off. I called at the doctors when I arrived home in Leicester and he pushed a sharp pair of scissors down the finger, then switched over to cut a vee shape in the nail to release the trapped blood. I recall climbing up off the floor and often wonder how people managed to cope with having fingernails removed by force.
The days at the loading end caused my pay to shoot up from twelve shillings and four pence to twenty-one shillings per day, a welcome change in all senses. Normally the better-paid jobs were reserved for the regular workers and no Bevin Boy at Bagworth ever graduated to working on the coalface.
Lighting in top seam was limited to a few electric lamps at the pit bottom and at the junction where I first worked, but electric cables snaked their way up to the coalface to operate the loader and the coal
cutter.
Officials, such as Clem Linford and the deputies who fired the shots, carried electric lamps on their hard hats. Some workers carried an electric lamp that looked like a miniature light house whilst the rest of us
used our carbide lamps.
Having a bare flame, we workers would often draw pictures on the sides of rusty tubs. For some reason cats arseholes were the most popular, perhaps because they were relatively easy to draw.
Harry Booton had a large carbide lamp which stood on the ground but the rest were small and hung on one's belt. The carbide needed frequent attention and the water valves tended to leak too much water, causing the flame to shoot to some 100 mm long, using up the carbide at a rate of knots.
I had a party piece: when I would conceal the lamp inside my shirt and then strike the flint. Flame would explode and fill the shirt. It was very spectacular when it worked properly but judging the moment was a problem.
The regime in the bottom seam was completely different owing to the presence of gas and so everyone had to wear hard hats and use the electric lamps. People were searched for contraband such as matches and cigarettes. So different from our pit where we wore cloth caps, smoked cigarettes, used matches and generally had a carefree life. Everyone was required to wear safety boots, which had steel toecaps bright and shiny on the outside. I usually bought boots made with unstained leather simply because they looked 'cool'. When I had finished with them they were recycled by Dad for gardening.
Bagworth Colliery was short on Bevin Boys nut most of us lived in Leicester and tended to use the same Midland Red bus. One chap in bottom seam was a cycling enthusiast and he preferred cycling to the pit to keep his legs in good trim. I remember that he often went on 100-mile treks at the weekend.
I was staggered to find out that his bike had cost him £90. This at a time when our average wage was £3 18s 0d per week. I was still riding the Raleigh bike, which I had had when first at Bosworth School.
This I kept and used until I left for Kuwait in1954, then I handed it over to Michael Plant, my sister's son.
Wages were handed out at a window in the offices and on Friday afternoons one paraded after work, handed in ones tally and received a brown envelope. The tally was important as it was used to keep tabs on whether a man was in the pit or not or where he was working in the pit. Funnily enough I can't remember my number.
After we came up at three-o clock we were able to have a cup of steaming tea and some pudding in the canteen before catching the bus. Bagworth was a bit lacking in facilities such as baths, so one went home in one's filth to get a bath at home.
Regular miners had a coal allowance but this was not allocated to Bevin Boys so we had to bath in a minimum depth of water and beg for extra coke from the coalman.
After the first year of working at the pit I decided that I ought to be doing something with my spare hours and spent some considerable time working through the options suggested by an ICS advert.
Starting at A for accountants and then architecture I arrive at Z for zoologist, and then retraced my steps and came back to Architecture.
I applied for enrolment, paid my fees, which seemed a large amount of money to shell out at one go, and received my first booklets.
Within weeks of starting this correspondence course the Manager and Under Manager buttonholed me at my work site and asked if I was interested in getting a grant to go to study mining engineering at Sheffield. I turned down the idea partly because of my previous commitment but also because I had this stupid notion that I would be taking an easy option whilst my fellows were slogging away. Pathetic idea but then that was me at the time.
As previously mentioned, Clem was the chief doggie and had a very abrupt manner. He was however a real grafter who was also responsible for designing new track layouts, which were fabricated in the workshops at ground level and then brought down on trollies. Clem would then enlist the help of Syd Bowler to work over a weekend to get the track installed. Both Syd and Clem lived within walking distance of the pithead so travel was no problem.
A slightly bizarre job that Clem did was to check the winding ropes during the summer break. The rope would be wound at dead slow speed and Clem stood on a gantry letting this pass through his cupped hands. Imagine the slivers of steel that project out of the twist. It still makes my toes curl with the thought.
Freddy Perkins lived in Nailstone and always wore a warm jacket as he worked on the main gate but would move into our district to escape from the cold wind. He would squat on the empty track and keep an eye open for full tubs. Fred kept a smallholding and reared over a hundred cockerels, which had to be killed and trussed ready for his customers at Christmas.
His wife produced a baby, and when I asked him how he managed it, he replied, 'Ah Jack it's the knack as you need.' {said quickly} Thinking back he never did any other job and didn't rush to help if there were tub spills or other stoppages.
As Jess Burt's clip-ons were always very tight, to hold back the line of full tubs, Freddy had to use a short length of pipe to tease the clip to a less tight position just before unclipping. If it was too tight, for that extra leverage he would let it go to the sink pulley, which would burst the clip away from the rope. This was frowned upon as likely to damage the rope and so was considered an emergency measure only.
Jess Burt was a bookie in his spare time, and would often not bother to turn up when he had decided to attend an unofficial race meeting {called a flapping track for some reason}. He was a big chap who always kept his lips moist with a lip salve and was a great raconteur of risqué stories.
I recall him demonstrating the act of coitous interruptus on one occasion. On another occasion a group of us were sitting in the seat hole and talking about sexual matters when suddenly I felt a warm something being pressed into my ear. It was Joey White's penis. Often Joey and Jess would work up erections and then stand under a lamp to give a display.
Joey had worked as a small boy at the Bagworth brickyard and the women there used regularly to play with him and mould his penis in the clay. Thus the regular usage produced a massive result.
Another regular doggie was named Ernie and he lived in Coalville .His favourite trick at the end of the day was to drop his trousers in order to adjust his shirt but he always tucked his genitals behind his legs and minced like a woman. To shouts of derision, of course.
The clipper-on called David had a girl friend or wife, I'm not too sure, and when not sending tubs on their way he would spend his time in his seat hole imagining deep thoughts, and getting erections. This was referred to as David getting a tenting.
Jack Smith from Leicester became a close buddy and I agreed to be Godfather to his son Stephen. Jack's wife Beryl worked as a secretary at a company called Taylor Hobson, renowned for their glass lenses, and we frequently attended concerts at the De Montfort Hall. Jack was a few years older and had been in a protected trade as a sheet metal worker but then became conscripted.
After leaving the pit he became a tutor at Colchester and later at Weston Super Mare where he and Beryl lived until they died. They become very fond of Mother and often visited her in St Albans. Jack's brother served in the forces and married an Indian girl, striking me as very exotic. I met them at Jack's funeral, but have lost touch since then.
Having paid my money to the ICS, I was determined to learn all I could and the lessons would arrive as grey covered booklets, which had to be studied closely so that answers could be written and sent off to the school for correction.
Using drawing pens was a technique, which took some time to learn as I had no-one to ask for a demonstration. I remember that presentations were very scratchy for quite a time before several pennies dropped.
I kept the booklets for many years but after a time they looked so dated that I decided to consign them to a rubbish bin.
The evening routine after arrival from the pit was fairly consistent. First it was important to have a meal which had been kept warming in the gas oven. This usually amounted to a huge pile of meat and several vegetables with lashings of gravy; then a sweet, either pudding or a tart of some sort with a fair quantity of custard.
Next came the ablutions in a maximum of four inches {100mms} of water. Coal dust has a very unpleasant tendency to cling to skin and so washing was a bore and the small quantity of water quickly became a grey mixture.
Often I have found myself waking up in the bath with the water almost cold and then having to somehow wash off the congealed scum. Falling asleep always produced a nauseous feeling when I awoke so I tried to fight against it, but tiredness always seemed to win.
Then it would be time to start studying and for reading work I would use the bathroom as it was quieter than the kitchen where Mum and Dad would sit hunched over the coke stove. Even so, the murmur of the radio or conversation would tend to distract, particularly so if I was failing to understand the drift of a lesson.
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