Marine’s first Panzer.
During the mid 1950's when the Mechanisation frenzy was gathering momentum the buzz word on everyone’s lips miners and the population of Cwm alike was the introduction of Marines first panzer, little did they realise the impact it would have on one part of the Village.
My first experience with it was after I finished my training in Oakdale pit and elected to work in Marine.
I was put to work on the screens, as was the norm while waiting to enter Boys town for coalface training. At this time B1 Panzer was well into production working a single panel face about 120 yards long in the bottom black vein. The panzer itself was just a cutter with a 4/6 jib mounted on the armoured conveyor and working a prop free front (dowytys and link or Schlomm bars), the face section was 3 foot nine coal overlaid with 2 foot six of clod they just couldn’t hold. The result was that muck was filled out with the coal and sent out for the screens to deal with!!
Needless to say the crushers broke down frequently and the shout would go out for “muck on the floor” whereby instead of picking the muck into the little shute beside each screen boy you would pick straight on the floor and wall it up around you. This situation was so bad and the muck so large you would have to mount the screen belt as it spewed down from the tippler and ride down sledging the big stuff, so the boys lower down could handle it. It got so bad that one day we took a leaf out of the colliers book and went on strike, the message reached the Manager about the time he had walked into another district underground so we dug in until he arrived back at the screens in a filthy mood together with our lodge chairman and after much profane language he threatened to crop us all for the down time. Whereby Fred Bird our lodge chair reciprocated by telling him to do it and he would pull all the men out of the pit. The situation was resolved when he agreed to fetch men up the pit to clear the back log of muck and in future any muck on the floors would be cleared by the screen boys on overtime.
It wasn’t long before the Panzer was the topic of conversation with the population. For as it advanced rapidly under Cwm in a N.N Easterly direction and crash packing behind, it left a trail of subsidence on the surface, especially the top end of King Street. It was so bad that the residents could actually hear the buildings groaning at night as the ground settled. There were instances where you could see through cracks in the walls into your next-door neighbours rooms and the road and pavements outside started to resemble those road signs for road humps. However lightly people not affected treated this, it must have been heartbreaking for the owner-occupiers, who had to make do with temporary repairs until the settlement was complete. Now outwardly there are no signs of this unless you know what to look for.
D. Williams 2006