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Young Jack Hill lived in Leicester and worked at a bank until he was called up during the war to work in Bagworth Colliery nearby.
One evening a group of us went out for fish and chips and that was the one and only time that I have eaten chips from a stiff bag made with blue backed sugar paper.
Mansfield was visited on several occasions for cinema shows, me not being au fait with pubs. In fact at that time I had never been inside one and wouldn't have had a clue how to behave.
Being allocated to Bagworth gave me the chance to live at home but as the shift started at 7 am, I had to be out of bed at 5.30 in order to get to the bus stop at Western Park gates by 6 a.m. I relied on Dad to waken me and this he did by twisting my big toes under the bedclothes. I used to grumble and mother would call out that I was ungrateful to call him names.
The bus would be almost full by the time it reached me and so I seldom sat with my mates. We had a system whereby several newspapers were bought and placed in a common pool so that they could be read during slack times when coal wasn't running.
The bus arrived at the pithead at 6.30 so there was time for a huge cup of tea and a slice of toast before the big drop just before 7am. Some of the old-stager colliers used to go down earlier to walk the couple of miles to their place of work and be ready for the start up. However, we Bevin Boys being involved with transport could hang back until the last minute.
My reputation as a 'good lad' had gone before me courtesy of a distant relative named Syd Bowler, who worked as a dogsbody keeping wheels and axles well greased. Syd always had a short length of soggy cigarette between his lips. He cracked his false teeth when thinking and was heartily disliked by his brother-in-law, my Uncle Bill. {Mothers brother}
Consequently, I had to live up to this reputation, which meant that I couldn't utter swear words like the rest of the chaps and of course have no lewd thoughts or experiences of the opposite sex.
The regulars would have great fun when passing by and ask questions such as, 'Did you dip it last weekend Jack?'
My first job was unhitching empty tubs on the first leg of their journey and then transferring them via a short tunnel to a clipping on point where they began the steep climb up to top seam.
This location was at a junction and so the man in charge named Harry Booton, from Markfield, kept an eye open for problems. Jess Burt had the job of clipping on the full tubs on their way down to pit bottom. He was very brave as he would get a train of some six or eight tubs moving down the slope and then clip the first one on as they were beginning to gather speed. Sometimes he missed the rope and then he would have to attempt to slow them down with a wooden braking device.
Fred Perkins was at the receiving end of this event from where the tubs would then be allowed to run slowly down to the onsetter. Jimmy White at some stage was the unclipper of full tubs coming down the incline but after a while when I became proficient and my hands less swollen from the rough usage I swapped jobs, but very seldom volunteered for Jess Burt's job.
There was always a slack period when the coal was being blown at the face and when all the empties had been sent in, and so we would all move into a refuge hole to avoid the cold winds sweeping up the gate. Top seam was the downcast shaft so the air was very cold in winter and even not too warm in the summer due to the speed of movement.
The onsetter operated the signals and gate access to the cage and he always wore a donkey jacket. In winter the water dripping down the shaft would freeze into long icicles some 6 or 8 metres long, and when the weight was too much they would break off and Cliff would hear them and shout out before they hurtled downwards to smash to smithereens on the sump boards. The shaft continued down for several more metres to allow space for the weights on the end of the guy ropes [steel hawsers] to swing freely.
A long-standing joke by everyone with a wind problem was to walk down towards the pit bottom, fart and then wait for the reactions of people caught in the blast of methane. There was of course no escape from the smell but fortunately it quickly dissipated in the flow of air.
Very soon after getting to know the techniques, I was given the job of being on the market, which meant that I was available to do the job of anyone who was absent. This made life much more interesting as one day I would be unclipping empties, handling empties behind the pit bottom or sitting at the big turn listening for trouble.
This was an eerie job as the big turn was a long right-angled bend with many rollers to keep the rope flowing smoothly. There were about thirty each for the full and empty sides and the trick was to keep listening for the slap of a clip which had broken loose that could create havoc when the following tub caught up with it and pushed it off the rails.
When the rope was running and no tubs were in earshot there would be all sorts of creaks and groans, and bits of the roof falling to help keep up the illusion of ghosts. Remember too that one had two electric lamps and one's carbide lamp for company with nobody closer than a mile away and no telephone to communicate with others.
If a clip did fall off or become loose on the downward slope, the full tub would rush downhill until it activated a trip, which then allowed a steel girder to drop on its hinge and force the tub into the roof. Often the tub would tip over sideways and coal would be shot across the track for some distance. This, on an angled path of 40 degrees.
By bringing the signal wires together and sawing on them with a strip of hacksaw blade one could advise the chaps down the hill what had happened and appeal for their help in the struggle against gravity.
Once coal was running at the face any stoppage was felt throughout the system and so getting back to normal was paramount.
A spotlight jinking towards we struggling men would indicate that the under manager, Mr Whitmore, was on his way, supposedly to help things along. However his hasty manner tended to make matters worse and I often found myself telling him to go away as we would be able to cope much better. This used to make him rather upset but then....
One day when I was at another job, the full tubs broke away after the trip lever and smashed into others standing stationary waiting for Jess Burts act. One or two overturned on Harry Booton, injuring his back so he had to carried out on a stretcher.
When the job was restarted, I was detailed to go and do the unclipping job. Being slightly unnerved by the happening, I spent every spare moment in digging a refuge in the wall on the far side away from the full side. Think of the total width of some 3.5 metres with tracks for full and empties and a small gap between so I ensured that empties never stood in my way for more than a few minutes.
Empties rattled all the way upwards but full tubs came down silently with only a slight creak when they crossed over a joint in the rail. When empty, the rope would spring up to the roof and sizzle against the underside of the steel girders which were referred to as rings. The rope being endless had many counterweights to keep it taut and required a powerful electric motor to keep it moving.
With all the friction and the weight of tubs the starting process had to be carefully undertaken. The clutch was wound out and the motor started by rheostat and gradually brought up to speed. Then the clutch was wound back in at a slow rate to avoid any jerking.
Keeping the track in good alignment was the doggie's job, and he would patrol his allotted beat several times in the day. Syd Bowler being a freeroving chap also kept his eye on things as did the chief doggie named Clem. Smart. Wet patches along the roadway would tend to make the sleepers work into the ground and then a tub would become derailed and be dragged along until it struck an obstacle. With experience one could tell problems with the jerking of the rope and dash for the safety button to stop the motor.
In my second year, a new face was created behind the shaft, and this had its access fairly close to the pit bottom with an inclined section 40 metres long up to a right angled bend where the tubs were unclipped. They then ran down this incline to be released out to the main gate.
This face suffered a setback when a large section of roof developed water infiltration and collapsed. A gang was recruited to clear the fall and that took several weeks of hard graft amid uncomfortable conditions with water falling on the spot. Some form of cover was created out of corrugated iron sheeting and the water was directed away to a lower collection point.
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