pit anybody like to gu down a mine,,or has bin down one

Have took the kids down Caphouse a time or two, they wernt so keen but I loved it.

All the stories that my grandad had told me suddenly came to life when I could see the thing he was talking about.

His favorite was the story of his first day at work, he was told to sit by an air door and open it when he heard something coming then shut it again. After an hour or so a miner came out of the dark and took grandad's lamp off him as his own had gone out.

So grandad sat there for the rest of the shift with no light. He told me it was the darkest black he had ever seen, and no matter how tight I shut my eyes I would never see it in my life time.

Here we are twenty years or so latter, his industry wiped out and I finaly get to see an "air door" and how dark it gets but not in a working pit , in a museum !!

I only wish grandad had still been here so I could share this with him.

:rolleyes: yes indeed times sure have changed, for the worst,i started with the then NCB. in 1964 at 15, as you say the expierience of being underground is unreal. your grandad was spot on about the dark, we during our training had to turn off lights and make our way in the right direction to a point that sempt a mile away, but it wasn,t. going down on the cage was in its self an exp at around 40/50 mph,made your ears pop,not like pack house 2 mph.........could go on all day but...........thanks 4 the reply

Dont know if you can help but the other week I put a thread on this part of the forum and the wanted section, looking for ex- miners. I was after information on lighting a lamp.

Ive got, what I think is a side lit lamp, which Ive been told needs a battery to start it then it runs on the oil in the tank under it.

Try a search on the wanted section, I think I called the thread " are there any miners out there" or something to that effect.

Any information would be great.

Don't go down the mine daddy plenty coal on top .My father coal hewer for 15yrs around sheffield & worksop?

Originally posted by hj dary
Dont know if you can help but the other week I put a thread on this part of the forum and the wanted section, looking for ex- miners. I was after information on lighting a lamp.

Ive got, what I think is a side lit lamp, which Ive been told needs a battery to start it then it runs on the oil in the tank under it.

Try a search on the wanted section, I think I called the thread " are there any miners out there" or something to that effect.

Any information would be great. as i remember only the deputies were allowed to re light lamps, have you got the key for it, im not certain but i dont think they had batteries,cant be sure though as i wasnt allowed near one

been down loads of caves/mines in the peak district over the last 20 years.

reminds me of the old joke where two blokes were down pit and one bloke said to the other, its bloody dark down here in't it ? to which the other one replied.............don't know can't see a thing.

hi ya cheeky boy
i worked down the coal min for nearly 20 years ive seen some nasty accidents down there too grusome for a family forum like this it was hard work but a great set of work mates you will never find in other industries we worked hard and played hard in those days ive also been to caphouse took my dad and he did not know how we managed in the confined space we had to work in but i would do it all again good money not so good for your health tho with all that dust about and injuries what you cast off as minor at the time but suffer from in later years oh what i wuold give to be 20 again :D

Went down Barnsley Main in 1963 [ on school visit ], never went down again. My dad was a miner and strongly advised against mining as a career. He died of industrial disease last year.:(

Originally posted by Nimrod
Went down Barnsley Main in 1963 [ on school visit ], never went down again. My dad was a miner and strongly advised against mining as a career. He died of industrial disease last year.:(

I am so sorry to hear that; it couldnt have been very pleasant for you and your family.

My dad used to tell me of his days down the pit. Stories of a pick n shovel in a three foot seam and I saw the scars on his back from it. He died of emphasyma that was his legacy from the pit.
He said to me when I was leaving school you can go for any job you want but if you ever try to go down the pit I'll break your leg rather than let you.

Went down Westthorpe at Killamarsh in mid 70's. Not a job I would have like to have done.

Originally posted by playman
been down loads of caves/mines in the peak district over the last 20 years.

I don't want to provoke an argument here, but I've also been down a lot of the old lead mines in the peaks, and I can imagine just what it was like on a freezing winter morning, going down the climbing shafts in a place like Knotlow for example, (just outside Monyash). The conditions were horrific and dangerous, when you see the way that the 'coffin levels' were cut, you realise how hard the work must have been.

I don't know if it was harder in the lead mines or the coal mines..anyone know of any old lead miners?

I went to NORFOLK SECONDRY SCHOOL and as we got to the school leaving age we were sent on two work experiance days one was down a pit and the other was to a rolling mill put me off work for life both were very much what we were supposed to do when we left school.We had a job placement officer visit our school called Mr Oliver who had a desk in the old youth opportunities building on West Street ,years later he had become a security guard at the DSS building I would have thought he could have got himself a better job but thats life he always said I wouldnt amount to much he was dead right.

We have been down the old pit, which is now the National mining museum. It makes a really good day out, even I enjoyed it. I think it is free too.

:rolleyes: yes indeed times sure have changed, for the worst,i started with the then NCB. in 1964 at 15, as you say the expierience of being underground is unreal. your grandad was spot on about the dark, we during our training had to turn off lights and make our way in the right direction to a point that sempt a mile away, but it wasn,t. going down on the cage was in its self an exp at around 40/50 mph,made your ears pop,not like pack house 2 mph.........could go on all day but...........thanks 4 the reply
i started in 65,at 15, orgreave colliery,where did you train ? treeton ?

i worked on top till i was old enough to go underground,worked on haulage and belt maintainance,ive still got my tally and my underground certificate......

When I was 14 in 1952...Shiregreen School had a trip to Handsworth Pit ..It was supposed to recruit lads who fancied working for the NCB it was very interesting but no way was I going to work down there..I can still remember when the Pit Deputy got us to put out all our lights and see what total darkness was really like..Scary stuff.

:) yo! depoix,I worked at treeton in the early 70s,we also did a lot of training down orgreave. do you remember the district where it was all solid rock [did'nt need supports] & as you looked up there was a prehistoric river bed with all the fossils & such, also there was another mine shaft down there, that we were told was the oldest in existence.if memory serves! i believe orgreave pioneered man riding conveyor belts,we were well jealous as down treeton we had to walk for miles every where [officially-lol].I agree with the other post,mine workers were the best bunch of guys you could meet,in & outta work,had some right laffs & still tell some pit related stories nearly 40 years on. happy memories

pit anybody like to gu down a mine,,or has bin down one

I had 10 good years working in the coalmines here in Oz, a friend of mine took me down to have a look around, & I was hooked, 20 feet wide and 12 foot high, it took us 45 mins to get to the coal face in either a diesel or electric man car on rails, we only worked a 7 hour shift including the travelling in & out & the money was great too & every weekend off.
A lot of the miners were from Yorkshire, so it was a pleasure to go to work, unfortunately or fortunately, I injured my neck in a roof fall & wasn't allowed underground anymore, the blokes I worked with got transferred to another pit that was very gassy, they used to get a lot of blow outs & the blokes got very scared at times, another mine in this area had an explosion that killed about 14 miners, that was a gassy pit too.
I spent my first couple of years as a loco driver,hauling stuff in & out, it was job & finish every shift, I decided to work at the coalface to get some experience, so I could go to another mine that paid big money, that's when I got injured.

i started in 65,at 15, orgreave colliery,where did you train ? treeton ?

i worked on top till i was old enough to go underground,worked on haulage and belt maintainance,ive still got my tally and my underground certificate......

Hi Depoix/ I worked on the haulage around 1964 and may have left before you started? Do you remember any of the guys who worked the pit top? On the shakers there was a big guy with a moustache and always wore a beret - Walter was his name. There was a skinny little irishman too - I think his name was (of course) Mick. The foreman was another skinny little guy called Bill - always wore a flat cap. There was an older very amiable guy called Bill that also worked the shakers. There was a guy called Ray - reddish hair and moustache who was the underbanksman and he worked with a big thick set guy with dark curly hair and a large head - can't remember his name. The tipplers were worked by a heavy guy with a handlebar moustache who always had an unlit sherlock holmes type in his mouth - can't recall his name. Everyone used to try to work the crossovers which was considered an easy one. Do you remember any of these guys??