New Years Day.

[John]

This would have to be around 1966, before New Years Day was a bank holiday, I arrived at work, probably a little groggy from the previous nights pub session, but still fit for work.
I got changed, picked my lamp up and clocked on, made my way to the Elec shop, smoked a couple of ciggies to build my nicotine levels up to get me through a shift.
So far I was the only member of the afternoon elec staff that had turned up, then Tommy Shaw walked in followed by "Bunker Bill" (Terry Lacey), aft shift elec Chargehand.

"Looks like this is it then lads, Tom you take 51's, John get your tools and take 43's and I'll cover 43's".
Charming!! Furthest district inbye, only authorized to change light bulbs and work on low voltage gear and thrown in at the deep end to cover a working district so far inbye you had to book a flight in there by British Airways!!

"Time to go, John, if you get ANY problems give me a bell at 43's"

Tommy suffered with a hernia, he shouldn't have been U/G to start with, me an 18 year old hadn't a clue, and we had three faces operating the old PLA, all contract miners, this is going to be interesting!!
Oddly enough, I didn't have a single problem before both underground bunkers were filled up, then shortly afterwards came the long walk to pit bottom, around 6.5 miles, uphill and down dale.

I recall Tom having a problem, shearer haulage end blew a pipe, no way could Tom crawl under the ripping lip, let alone along the face. He made us all laugh, the miners cleaned the machine down, removed all the haulage end casing bolts and lifted it off, carried Tom under the ripping lip, then all the way up the face to the shearer, where he changed the pipe, checked the machine, then left the lads to put the lid back on, bolt it up, while his entourage carried him back to the gate end.

Funny how incidents like this stick in the memory and yet we can forget our car keys and lock ourselves out the car.

Another one that sticks in my memory, afternoons again, I was sent in with Tommy Shaw again, job was to recover 100 yards of HV armoured cable. I looked at Tommy, how the Eff are we going to handle 100 yards of cable with you like that Tom??? (Tom had a hernia, he was in constant pain awaiting to have it operated on)
"Don't you worry lad, just do as I say and we'll both be fine".
We rode inbye on the manrider, then took the belts out to the job site, inbye end of 1'sNo1 belt.
First thing Tom did, was run down what we were going to do and what he expected me to do. We knew roughly where the 100 yard point was from the junction of 1's and 42's, so we both lifted the cable end and threw it on the belt and started to feed the cable on the belt until eventually started hauling the cable, Tom was guiding the loop over the rollers and told me to jump on the belt and catch up with the cable end.
I jumped off the belt at the 100 yard mark and pulled the cable off and fed it into the side of the road, within minutes the whole cable was off the belt and loaded in the side of the road ready for the heavy gang to load it into "jotty's" for the ride out the pit the following day.
Pretty easy when you know how, and Tommy was a good teacher.

[eleceng]

This is how it was in those days. I remember at Bestwood, I was 20, 1960, a few months to come out of my time. We were short staffed. Alan Sale, our chargehand sent me to 11s double winger with 2 floor mounted Trepanners. "Now just cover, if you get in trouble, call me," Alan said. Of course I didn't, pride I suppose. Just got on with it. No major breakdowns. About a month or so later Alan sent me some help, Billy Maggs. One shift, Alan came on the district to see how things were. I had set up a job to do at LH tail gate. So, I was talking to Alan, & said to Billy, " you go & make a start on the job, I'll come later", off he went. Alan asked me what was I doing! Told him setting Billy out to start the job. "He's a qualified mech-elec." "Well he's been doing as he was told, no problems with him! LOL.

[John]

Looking back Mick, it was all good training that probably helped us in later years. I think I enjoyed working in private enterprise more though. They expected more from me. BUT, production was profit, so those employers expected us to jump higher when the phone rang.
BG on night shift was just myself, one fitter and one diesel fitter, we covered production, usually the main face and sometimes a smaller face, plus all the surface equipment up to the top of the storage bins. Plasterboard tradesmen covered from the delivery of the bins and their plasterboard plant.
Each tradesmen was expected to make on the spot decisions, and hopefully not have to call their Foremen out at 2-00am in the morning...LOL

I recall one nightshift, belts stopped, got a call from the control operator that a small feed belt wouldn't start, so went into the mine Foremans office to let him know I wanted his Landrover, he came with me..Stupid motor had burned out, se I took the details off the name plate and we took a trip to the plasterboard plants main store, where all our spare motors were kept.
Found "a motor" that was as close as I could locate as near as the one that had failed. Ended up getting a fitter with burning gear to blow some holes for mounting the "spare" motor. At least we got the job running within a few hours and nobody was called out.

Mind I could be a bit "Bolshie" at times, probably my Coal Board upbringing....LOL

Boulby Mine in many aspects was like working at the NCB only with private enterprise ideas, first and only place I've worked that shut down for only two days a year, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Plus they had an odd shift system that really took some getting used to.
We were always short staffed on the electrical side, so loads of overtime, sometimes way too much!
I once did 20 hours straight, with a four hour break to go home, get my dinner, pack some snap and back to it. I was already on an overtime shift, so was paid 24 hours at double tim, plus quick return and paid for working through meal breaks...A perk that day that wasn't planned too, sump time. We hated working in the sumps changing out the Flygt submersible pumps, No2 shaft was greasy from the ropes, No2 shaft was just plain HOT!! But we got a minimum 6 hours double time.
Pumps usually took eight hours to change out and check for running. I changed out the pump, damned thing failed later, so I had 24 hours at quadruple time, which gave me almost 2.5 weeks pay in just one day.

Australia was a different kettle of fish, worked for AI&S for a couple of years, they were a subsidiary of BHP, worst company I've ever worked for, when they needed coal, rules and regs went out the window. Appin Colliery in 1979 was a result of that, where several men died in a methane ignition. But when they didn't want coal, the company ran by the book, became very frustrating at times. Pit I worked at had some very old equipment, one transformer U/G had a slate insulator that the secondary operating gear was mounted to!! Must have dated to the 1920's or 30's.

[eleceng]

When I was at Asfordby (I told you about a young engineer there). We had been running on main surface North fan for a month. ( Previously running on temporary development fans). This Saturday 6am all elecs & fitters had been briefed on change over to South fan to make sure all was in order. Ventilation doors were all push button controlled. (Different to the old days). This Engineer said, "we start up South fan, make sure all is OK. Close North door, then open South door". OK! we all agreed. North door duly closed. This guy pressed the button to open South door. Nothing happened. Pressed several times, nothing. Panic! He opened main connection chamber. Getting drawings out ect. Whilst this was going on I decided to press the O/L reset, then open. It worked!!! The South door was opened! The engineer asked what I had done. Told him.

"But the O/L light wasn't on". "Maybe the bulb had blown". It had. There was muffled laughter around the fan house!!! Was he red faced. Needless to say we never got on after.