The Lamp.
After finishing my coalface training at the Celynen South colliery in 1959.
One of my first jobs was to work with Howard Whitcombe and John Hooper, who
were employed in the Abercarn drivage. This was a "heading" (roadway),
which was driven to the old pit bottom of the "Prince of Wales" colliery
at Abercarn, a mine that had been closed down for many years.
The heading was
necessary to make an underground connection with Cwmcarn colliery. Cwmcarn was
linked underground to the Prince of Wales shaft, for ventilation purposes and
allowing the men another way out, so complying with the mining regulations.
However the National Coal Board decided to fill in the Prince of Wales shaft,
therefore the new heading was required, giving the Cwmcarn men an escape route
via the Celynen South.
The Cwmcarn and South headings met at the pit bottom of the old colliery. Because
the old shaft was to be filled in a short "cross-cut" heading had
to be driven, thereby bypassing the old pit bottom. This cross- cut was where
Howard and John were employed.
The crosscut heading was driven through the "meadow vein" coal seam,
the coal was loaded into "drams" and transported (with the use of
a pony) to the main roadway and eventually to the surface. The "muck"
(rock and waste) was also shovelled into drams, this was sent to the old Prince
of Wales pit bottom, where it was my job to unload and "pack" it.
I found the work very hard because I was barely sixteen years old and I was
very small for my age, hardly built for such manual work. However we couldn't
choose what job we did and these menial tasks were usually given to young upstarts
such as myself. Although I did enjoy some of it, except for the loneliness.
Howard and John were very good "butties" to me and they would help
me whenever one or the other had the chance. They were great fun to work with,
always telling jokes and "messing about" (playing pranks). Like the
times they would creep quietly up on me, with their lamps unlit, in my lonely
workplace, then suddenly yell out scaring me half to death. Or another time,
when they put a dead mouse in my empty "Tommy box" giving my mother
quite a nasty shock, on opening it at home.
This was the usual initiation into the ways of pit life and every youngster
had to put up with the same sort of treatment. Although after a while I became
used to their sense of humour and I got very alert to their pranks, and soon
I was giving as good as I took, all in good fun of course.
Back in 1878 there had been massive gas explosion at the Prince of Wales colliery, when 268 men and boys (including my Great-grandfather) lost their lives. Most of the bodies were recovered, but not all, some were left when the district where the explosion had occurred was sealed off.
During the driving of the Abercarn heading, they broke through into some old
workings of the Prince of Wales. They discovered tools and old newspapers dating
back before the time of the explosion, but no human remains were found.
Very often while working away, my young mind would ponder about those poor miners
left entombed all those years ago, I would wonder if any of then had been still
alive when their workplace was sealed in.
I worked several hundreds of yards away from the others; they were completely out of sight from me, because the crosscut where they worked went off at right angles to the roadway where I was employed. So at times I got very lonely and I was glad when the fireman Stan Jenkins, made his twice-daily examination of my workplace. Stan was a devout chapel man, as most of the older officials were at that time. He wouldn't stand for any bad language, or messing about, but for all that he was a kindly old chap and I got on fine with him.
One particular morning I was working away unloading a dram of muck, all alone
as usual, when I noticed in the distance a light from an oil lamp. It was swaying
back and fore, as it would if being carried by someone walking. This was very
strange because whoever was carrying it didn't have his cap-lamp lit.
Closer and closer it came, it must be Stan I thought, and his battery might
have gone flat. I called out, "Stan, is that you", but there was no
reply. The lamp came within twenty yards of me and still there was no sound
or any indication of who its carrier might be. It then returned the way it came,
until it faded out of sight in the distance.
That's strange I thought, then after a little while I realised it must be John
and Howard up to their old tricks again, trying to frighten me. However I had
kept my cool and I hadn't panicked, as they would have expected, although at
one time I must admit, I felt more than a little uneasy.
When food time arrived, I went as usual to join the others for twenty minutes
of their company, while we ate the contents of our Tommy boxes.
I never mentioned anything about the oil-lamp; I wanted them to be the first
to bring up the subject so it would confirm my strong suspicions that they were
the culprits.
After a while with nothing being mentioned about the lamp, I couldn't hold my
silence any longer, so I said, "nice joke with the lamp, though a pity
I didn't fall for it", then adding "I guessed it was you all the time".
They looked at me bemused and asked me whatever was I talking about. So I explained
to them exactly what I had seen, still believing that they were the ones behind
it. But they insisted that they were innocent and Howard added, that it could
not have been Stan, because he had gone to deal with some trouble in another
part of the mine and he hadn't yet returned.
I knew for sure it could not have been Stan, it was not his character to play
about, especially at work, but of the other two I was never quite sure.
Even many years after this incident, they still denied trying to scare me on
that day.
So what can I say? I only know what I saw, was it a prank, or did I have a visit
from a long lost miner?
J. H. Smith.
P.S. I have since heard from John Hooper, who emigrated to Canada many years ago. He came across my web site while browsing the Internet and he was astounded to find this story. He emailed me saying, how pleased he was to have the story confirmed, because he has told the same story to his friends in Canada many times and each time they've looked at him as if he had lost his marbles. He still denies having anything to do with the lamp.