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Post by John on Nov 22, 2004 17:06:26 GMT -5
Terry Blythe's site is an excellant site about the Notts and Derbyshire Collieries...<http://www.terryblythe.co.uk/> Sadly Terry passed on earlier this month, Sept8th, his site may not be up much longer.UK NUM's site www.num.org.uk/Miners Advice, started by Dave Douglass from Hatfield Lodge, good site to get advice about any related injury claim. Stacks of info about UK coal industry, past and present. www.minersadvice.co.uk/index.htmPitwork, Bill Riley's excellant web site, well worth a visit. The new address is. www.dmm-pitwork.org.uk/html/index.htmDurham Mining Museum, good source of information about the north east UK coal industry as was. www.dmm.org.uk/Looking for an old workmate fron the UK coal industry, look no further, or get your name entered in Archies database. Find Old Mates! www.archiesplace.com/mining/Rothes Colliery. A publicity paper by the NCB. www.users.zetnet.co.uk/mmartin/fifepits/starter/east/more/pit-r4.htmFife Pits and Memorial Book. An interesting site about one of Scotlands coalfields. www.users.zetnet.co.uk/mmartin/fifepits/Here's a good site about the Kent coalfield.! www.dover.gov.uk/kentcoal/end.asp |
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Post by John on Feb 8, 2005 13:25:05 GMT -5
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Post by John on Mar 12, 2005 8:17:42 GMT -5
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Post by John on May 9, 2005 7:05:41 GMT -5
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Post by dazb on May 9, 2005 8:10:28 GMT -5
Re the Beltcom address, it doesn't seem to work John, I think that there is a "." missing between co and za. www.saimh.co.za/Beltcon/Beltcon2/paper212.htmlis another paper relating to the same installation. A quick scan of the article doesn't seem to relate much about the catastrophic failure of the 72"(approx) dia. Ina bearing in the drive assembly, that resulted in a major stand-down. I will read it more closely, I probably missed it at first glance. |
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Post by John on May 9, 2005 8:48:08 GMT -5
Whoops  All corrected Daz, I try to proof read all my posts, but me being a fick electrician with never enough sleep, sometimes miss summat  No there was no mention of the bearing failure Daz. I do recall when I was employed at Boulby mine, that we "shared" a winder motor with Selby, so did the Wheal Jane tin mine in Cornwall. As our winder motors were 3500hp and 7500hp, 6600volt DC, they ran rather expensive. So we shared the NCB Selby cablebelt spare motor. Quite a sight seeing motors as big as those, especially when they wind a stripped down heliminer weighing in excess of 60 tons under the skip down the shaft! To attempt at some sort of balance, the opposite skip was left loaded with 20 tons of ore. Still 40 tons out of balance though and winding was done at about 4 feet a second, pretty slow. The shaftmen accompanied the load all the way down, some on top of the skip, couple inside equiped with climbing ropes and harnesses in case the load moved and got caught on the guide rails, which did occur a couple of times. Contact with the winding engineman and Banksman was maintained by VHF radio at all times. At the top of the tower was a radio antenna pointing down the shaft. There were a couple of dead spots within the shafts, but overall, the radios worked pretty well. |
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Post by dazb on May 10, 2005 1:57:46 GMT -5
"but me being a fick electrician with never enough sleep, sometimes miss summat "
That might well explain why all surviving electricians are known to have the inherent ability to miss;
Any heavy work,
Arriving at a job any earlier than at a point where only the wires need connecting,
Being on the first draw in and last draw out,
Sawing through a live cable or grabbing the one non-isolated 11,000volt contact,
Being the one to pay for the round,
Being at the back of a group photograph,
Being short of cunning or alibi or acceptable excuse,
And perhaps most of all……………being caught !!
(Having stated all that I find it hard to believe that any electrician could possibly have missed out of more than his share of sleep.)
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Post by John on May 10, 2005 7:02:10 GMT -5
"but me being a fick electrician with never enough sleep, sometimes miss summat " That might well explain why all surviving electricians are known to have the inherent ability to miss; Any heavy work, Arriving at a job any earlier than at a point where only the wires need connecting, Being on the first draw in and last draw out, Sawing through a live cable or grabbing the one non-isolated 11,000volt contact, Being the one to pay for the round, Being at the back of a group photograph, Being short of cunning or alibi or acceptable excuse, And perhaps most of all……………being caught !! (Having stated all that I find it hard to believe that any electrician could possibly have missed out of more than his share of sleep.) Awww shucks Daz! Give us a little credit, all above applies to the Coal Board. I did on many, many occasions catch a draw well before the shift went underground to repair a breakdown at Boulby and many a shift after getting to bank had to ride back down for the same reasons. I also had to work at Boulby, something alien to us ex NCB types For the last three years of my time at Boulby, I was working around the Central area Daz, in charge of shafts, skipping gear, surface and underground, trunk conveyors, two 1000 ton ore bins, surge bin, both main vent fans, control room, main subs, pumps etc.. Kept me pretty busy at times. Must fes up though, if things got slack on nights, my old NCB habits kicked in though  |
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Post by winder on May 10, 2005 8:38:56 GMT -5
Interested about Boulby mate. Is John Chapman from AMCO still a gaffer there, as we had him a few times at Thorne Colliery. Cheers Dave Holt.
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Post by John on May 10, 2005 9:01:21 GMT -5
Interested about Boulby mate. Is John Chapman from AMCO still a gaffer there, as we had him a few times at Thorne Colliery. Cheers Dave Holt. Can't help you Dave, I left there in 1979, was there almost from the beginning before production started and still being developed right up to the first continuous miners were in use. I left before the West Links was completed to the South Side. The only Chapman I knew was Phil, another electrician who was on "B" shift. |
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Post by winder on May 12, 2005 4:46:00 GMT -5
Cheers mate. John has been at Boulby from arround the early nineties I think.
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Post by John on May 12, 2005 15:30:38 GMT -5
Cheers mate. John has been at Boulby from arround the early nineties I think. A little after my time. Just a snippet of useless information about Boulby Mine during my time there. 1975 when I started there, I was on "C" shift as an electrician underground, my foreman, was John "Kieth" Tomlinson, then Womble John Sinclair and John..  ? Freddie Fletcherwere the other shift electricians with me. Formen on the UG electrical staff, Scots John Richards. Malcom Bell, Trevor Atkinson and John Littleton. Shop steward was John, "D" shift Central Area electrician was John Blower, we also had other electricians on Days and other shifts named John. My Foreman in charge of the winders, shafts and orehandling was also John My last year there I was Central/Ore handling electrician, Mining Shift Supervisor, (Under Manager) John!! I have never worked at any place with so many blokes named John! Incidently, my names John |
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Post by John on May 26, 2007 16:38:45 GMT -5
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Post by dazbt on May 27, 2007 15:54:15 GMT -5
www.pitmen.co.uk/fairly new site, set off by a lady with a very genuine interest in coalmining and the people who are or have been involved in our industry. Some real interesting stuff on here, a lot of which centres around the mines and miners of Whitehaven (Cumbria) but is growing with an international acceptance, needs a few more proper 'Ragtash colliers' amongst it in my opinion, but don't say I said so. More than worth a look at and hopefully a dose of input, it is a friendly and certainly is an informative site.
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Post by John on Jul 1, 2007 12:49:30 GMT -5
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Post by John on Aug 2, 2008 17:25:32 GMT -5
(Terry Blythe's site is an excellant site about the Notts and Derbyshire Collieries...<http://www.terryblythe.co.uk/>
Sadly Terry passed on earlier this month, Sept8th, his site may not be up much longer.)
Terry Blythes site is still down. I did email Terry's son and he did tell me he was working on getting it back up. I did save all his material and have permission to use any and all if required. Looks like I may be putting his site up in mine to preserve his memory.
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Post by pitsparky on Mar 22, 2011 20:19:54 GMT -5
Hi John, I was reading your post about who you worked with at Boulby and the name John Blower Leapt out at me.
I went to school with John Blower, he was in the year below me and his brother George ( Geordie) was in the year above me, they also had an older brother but his name escapes me.
All three brothers looked the same though with dark curly hair and sort of half closed squinty eyes, they all gave the impression of looking down their noses at people as if they considered themselves superior to everybody else.
John came to Seaton Delaval workshops the year after me.
They were from New Hartley in Northumberland, the same village where the great disaster of the 16th of January 1862 happened, the beam of the beam engine snapped in half and plummeted down the shaft and collided with the rising cage killing all inside and trapping 104 men and boys below ground some as young as 12.
They all perished.
kate Humble who is a presenter om the BBC nature Programmes is the Great Great grand daughter of the under viewer Joe Humble who was acknowledged as the hero of the disaster and attempted rescue.
It was as a result of this disaster that legislation was introduced making it mandatory for all coal mines to have two shafts.
A classic example of bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
regards Malcolm.
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Post by John on Mar 22, 2011 21:37:51 GMT -5
It's a small world Malcom!!
I got on well with John, he called me Fonzie and I gave him the nickname Fozzie Bear.
Blower was a damned good electrician, he was on D shift, I was on C shift, I often worked overtime shifts on what should have been my days off with him. He was probably the best electrician at Boulby, he once said to me, "You and I get away with so much, because we are the two best electricians here"!! We were both pretty "bolshy" and spoke our minds.
He was better known as "see, see" as he kept saying "see" after everything.
He told me he was supposed to have been in a wheelchair, but had managed to stay reasonably fit. He had a bad accident in his late teens, he was on his motorbike, can't remember the whole story, but he got in a tangle with a head on auto. One of his legs had a deep scar, he had a metal plate in his head, and his legs were rebuilt from hip bone grafts.
He was our shop steward for a while at Boulby.
He was the first feller I worked with at Boulby during my first few days there before they let me loose on the pit!! We had a ballsed up new cable to fit to a Joy undercutting machine. The cable was somewhat too large physically, and we had to file the back gland down to get the cable through into the cable reel.
God it was hot in those early days!!
Amazing how some things stick in ones mind as clear as the days they happened, and yet others are lost in the mists of time!!
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Post by pitsparky on Mar 23, 2011 4:52:20 GMT -5
Hi John,
I can imagine that he was a good electrician. His two older brothers were also pit Electricians as well and they both had good reputations for being good craftsmen.
I still live within a couple of miles of where we lived as young men and don't recall him having a motorbike accident, I was a motorbiker as well and I am not surprised that he was in an accident as there were a lot of people around then who thought nothing of going out and having ten bottles of Newcastle Broon Ale and then jump in the car and drive home.
have you any idea where john is now?
Malcolm.
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Post by John on Mar 23, 2011 6:44:10 GMT -5
Hi John, I can imagine that he was a good electrician. His two older brothers were also pit Electricians as well and they both had good reputations for being good craftsmen. I still live within a couple of miles of where we lived as young men and don't recall him having a motorbike accident, I was a motorbiker as well and I am not surprised that he was in an accident as there were a lot of people around then who thought nothing of going out and having ten bottles of Newcastle Broon Ale and then jump in the car and drive home. have you any idea where john is now? Malcolm. John Barrett contacted me a few years back, maybe three, and told me John was still at Boulby but almost due for retirement. I think he lives at Brotton. I've been hoping some of my old mates would be on the internet and would have contacted me by now. I've done several key searches and this site shows up on all the google front pages. |
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Post by pitsparky on Mar 23, 2011 9:14:54 GMT -5
Hi John,
I have been sitting in the spring sunshine and that must have stimulated my memory.
John Blower was the oldest brother and he must be about 4 or five years older than me ( I am 64) he had a great reputation.
Then there was George ( Geordie), a year older than me)
and then there was Sid, he was the one that was a year or so younger than me.
all were Electricians at the NCB.
Malcolm.
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Post by John on Mar 23, 2011 9:33:31 GMT -5
I never knew how old John was, oddly, never asked anyone back then. 1975-79 the oldest electrician at Boulby was George James, he'd have been in his thirties. I started there in very early 75 when I was 27 years old, so a couple of years older than most of them who were already there, had it not been for James, we'd have had the youngest electrical staff of any mine in the UK!! On my shift "C" shift, Keith my foreman would have been the same age as myself, John Sinclair about 23, John? Forget his last name would have been about 23 or 24, Fred Fletcher about same as me. Youngest Foreman was Malcom Bell, early 20's. |
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? Freddie Fletcherwere the other shift electricians with me. 