A Typical Day in the Life of a 16
Year Old Miner
As I experienced 50 years ago.
January 1. 1956. 6 a.m. The old man is shouting up the stairs to get up. I put the light on, judging by the frost on the inside of the window there’s no thaw in sight, I go downstairs just in time to see him damping down a blazing fire with a bucket of small coal, pour a cup of tea he made an hour ago and while he goes back upstairs to the bathroom I sneak a few drags off his dogend before he comes down.
6.20am Walk over to Louis cafe to catch the double-decker down to the pit, the frozen slush crunching and its bad underfoot, the bus arrives, all the men get on downstairs, I go upstairs the conductress always takes upstairs fares first I tell her the old man is paying but he doesn’t know it and by the time she takes the fares downstairs the bus as arrived at the pit baths and I am first off and into the clean end of the baths, its like going from Siberia outside to Africa, I strip off clean clothes and walk through to dirty end change into pit clothes which are stiff as boards with dried pit muck, I do some running repairs to my trousers I rip a patch off my coat and smear it with NoSo and slap it on, next my pit boots and lastly my knee pads, I cringe at the thought of another shift with them cutting the backs of my knees, out to the boot room to grease my boots and chat with a few others my age, someone has got a woodbine and we pass it round before walking over to the lamp room together, in the lamp-room I chuck in my check and put my lamp on, the battery seems to weigh a ton this morning, we walk up the gantry and its starting to snow again but I don’t mind as I will be through into the airlock to the pit head the air is warmer here coming out of the shaft, a couple of us hang back for last bond and after a warning from the banks-man of being bond-casted we all cram on the last bond
7 o’clock hooter blows the banks-man knocks us away, we drop like hell for a bit then stop dead, someone remarks that Evans Cwm Du is driving the winder and that explains the stop, it seems he dropped us too fast he probably thought he had started winding coal and the over-wind device had cut in, this was a regular thing with him until he was demoted to the endless on pit bottom, We hang there for a while until the over wind is reset in the engine room, off we go again and thirty seconds later we land with a shudder and bump on pit bottom. Being a colliers helper I knew day by day where I would be working the other boys would gather on pit bottom to be assigned their jobs for the shift, I wait for a couple of the other helpers then set off for the walk to our district discussing what we did on new years eve.
7. 30 and we reach the turn where I would leave some of them for the rest of my way to the end of the face where I worked; the rest of the way was walking bent double because the rings were squeezed down and the bottom pucked up
7.45 Arrived at the road-head of B7, the colliers were sat down having a breather before taking the tools off their bars and crawling down the face to their stents. The belt is already running and this is always the soul destroying part of the shift scrunching up to get a start as the conveyor is tight up to the face. The face height was three foot nine and once you got started it wasn’t so bad as you had more room to use your shovel, soon it was more or less plain sailing just shoveling on and occasionally stopping to put up posts and flats as and when needed. The coal got harder as you advanced the face so the collier would use the ripper to cut into the face and I would shovel on to the belt, frequently the lumps would take two of us to bowl onto the belt.
10.20 The belt stops that’s the signal for food break, some of the colliers and helpers crawl back out to the road head for food the boys would gather apart from the colliers as we had our own topics to discuss.
10.40 The belt starts up again the signal to get back in the stent, this is delayed when the overman comes up the face and carries out a gas test in the rib and remarks to my father that the flame shows one and a half percent my father tests and a short disagreement ends with the overman asking for help to put up brattice sheets to divert the air flow into the rib, after discussing payment because the colliers were paid for any additional work done as pieceworkers it could delay them getting their coal off.
12 .00 Our coal is nearly off when the belt breaks down the face, this is a welcome delay until our dad and the rest of the colliers decide to throw the rest of their stent over into the gob-side this was established practice if there was no hope of the conveyor restarting as the shifters would come on this afternoon to advance the conveyor ready for tomorrows coaling shift.
12.30 The coal is off and all the posts and flats are up , drag the coal borer into the rib for drilling for water infusion, drill a few holes put the infuser seal in and turn the water on, this helps break up the solid coal ready for tomorrows shift.
1.30 Infusing finished, get the borer back out to the road-head, haggle with the supplies men to get some posts and flats into the rib ready for the morning.
1.45 Put tools on the bar, all the colliers and boys gather in the road head for the walk out to pit bottom, a lot of friendly banter among us as we set off, what a relief when we reach the main haulage to be able to walk more or less upright for the rest of the way out.
2.20 Pit bottom and instead of hanging back get as close to the front of the throng and try and get on the first bond.
2.30 I am on the first bond but because of the rush to get on the hitcher refused to signal us away and makes us all get back off to count us on, the men are grumbling and cussing when they get off but it doesn’t affect my position I am still on the first bond down comes the gate and we are on our way.
A few of us boys gather in the lamp-room waiting to cadge a woodbine and then wander off over to the baths into the boot room to brush off our boots on the roller brushes then to pit lockers to get pit clothes off. Into the showers with a lot of larking about like throwing freezing water over the cubicles where the men were showering, we were last out of the showers to dress.
3. pm A lot of us gather in the pit canteen (that’s a joke about all you get there is cups of tea and a rock cake or corned beef sandwich) the colliers are usually good for a cup of tea and if you had the money buy five woodbines, now’s the time to go to the ambulance room to get any knocks or bumps dressed or as often happened you got a black nail Harry Brown the ambulance man would give your black nail the hot needle treatment.
3.30pm We set off home I separate from my pals by Dyffryn and walk home up the slip and railway view way, dinner is always ready and after a bit of a nap I wander down the stute to see if its open.
6.30pm Meet Barrie and call down Auntie Phyllis for an hour or so then off up to Louiges café for a cup of Horlicks or hot cordial, spend an hour in Louiges trying to chat up Irene she’s the same age as us and he’s watching us like a hawk. Later go down to Joe Spinetti's he’s got a juke box installed so this is the in place now, Adrian Spinetti and Byron Rodgers are there to chinwag to.
9.30pm we all split up I go home and watch TV until 10 o’clock shutdown then it’s off to bed.
Dillwyn Williams, January, 2005.
Some notes to help reader.
There was no holiday for New Year’s Day at that time just Christmas and Boxing Day
Noso was a tube of liquid adhesive purchased in the pit canteen useful for clothes repairs as there were no overalls etc issued then.
The airlock at the pithead of No1 pit was where the air was drawn through the whole colliery by means of a huge fan so consequently was warmed by its passage
The Banks-man was the person responsible for the operation of the pit cages on the surface; the Hitcher was responsible for the same operations on the pit bottom.
The Bond was another name for the pit cage, Bond-casting was the term used for refusal to descend the pit after the hooter was blown for coal winding to start at the beginning of each shift.
Colliers Helper these were boys between the age of 16 and 18 who assisted the collier on the coal face and usually received £1to£1.50 pocket money in addition to his wages at the end of each week usually on faces where mechanization had not been possible, the natural progression from there was onto the road-heads or roadway repairers or the colliers list where due to his experience he would become a full blown collier at 21 years Colliers, Road-head or Ring-holt men and repairers were always pieceworkers and top of the heap, at the time of this short story I was assistant to my father.
The Bar was a length of steel rod which was lockable at one end where he threaded his working tools on to
Stent was the length of coalface allotted to each collier on the long-wall coalface, in the case of B 7 the dimensions were seven and a quarter yards long by 3 feet nine inches height by 4 feet six depth of daily advance calculated together would yield in the region of twenty five tons of coal
Gas testing was carried out at various times during the shift by deputies and overmen and shot-firers prior to firing shots, certain colliers were also delegated oil lamps which were usually hung in the workplace with the flame set at a certain height, a glance at the lamp would reassure the collier that every thing was o.k. any alteration in the flame height or as frequently happened the lamp went out would alert him to abnormal gas concentrations and the deputy or overman was sent for to do a more detailed test, the gas level set by law whereby all operations were stopped and men withdrawn from the area was 2 ¼ % in the air stream, this was lowered later after a gas explosions at Bedwas, Cambrian , and the disaster at Six Bells showed that the explosive gas/ air mixture was much lower
The Rib was the end stent of each face and much harder to work as it was literally carved out of the solid coal. Gob this was the area of the face left where the coal had been removed and usually filled up on the night shift by another team called packers, this was also piece work.