ken
Trainee
Posts: 46
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Post by ken on Dec 22, 2010 15:24:17 GMT -5
Some miners were real practical jokers. This one was told me by my father before I started at the mine.
The custom of most miners was to keep their pithead baths locker key was on a piece of string looped through the button- hole of their work jacket and the key in the top pocket, when underground. The face workers usually left their jackets in the main gate near the deputy's kist with their bait tin.
Sometime during the shift someone had "rearanged' the keys on the jackets. Of course this was not noticed until they got into the baths. They soon realised that this meant a lot of running around to find the right key. The process was not helped by the fact that the baths building was on three floors!!!!
I don't think they ever found out who the perpetrator was.
Ken
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Post by Sam from Kent on Jan 2, 2011 13:08:22 GMT -5
Visited the National Mining Museum at Wakefield with my partner. Went into the Pit Head Baths and the guide who was playing the Baths Superintendent was either a miner or a very good actor. I'm sure that all Baths Superintendents were recruited from the Gestapo!!!"
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Post by shropshirebloke on Jan 3, 2011 15:42:02 GMT -5
I'm sure that all Baths Superintendents were recruited from the Gestapo!!!" Our baths bloke at Granville (Shropshire) in the late 70s was also the NUM Lodge Secretary. During the hard winter of 79, when the pit was under threat of closure, we'd been told that the last hope was a delegation going down to Hobart House in London. Due to the extreme weather I'd been put on the bank to work in the supplies compound, which was usually a job for the "aged and infirm". Because of the extreme cold (-10 to 12C during the day) we were allowed to nip over to the canteen on a regular basis for hot food and drink. Imagine my surprise when I saw the slimy little Geordie sliding round the back of the lamp room. "Oi, Herbie - I thought you were supposed to be down in London trying to save our jobs?". "Norw bonny lad - Birmingham Airports closed". At this point I heard a train passing on the main line to Birmingham, and said that the trains were still running. His reply was that the trains might be running, but that their chartered executive jet wouldn't be able to fly them from Brum down to London. After the pit shut he became a local councillor (and had his own NUM branch, but I'll keep that story for another time) - all I will say is that when I was involved with the local Labour Party in the 80s all you had to say was "Got any soap Herbie?" and he'd jump about 3 foot in the air. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2011 14:23:01 GMT -5
I remember a particularly officious bath attendant at Castlebridge in Scotland, my mate gathered a few of us outside the office door at the end of the shift, he then rushed into the office proclaiming in a loud voice "there's a naked man in the locker hall" said attendant rushed out shouting he'd sort him out and it wouldn't be happening again, he'd covered quite a distance before it sank in what he'd been told and turned back to see us all with strategically placed safety bunnets laughing at him, then flashing all we had before running into the showers. He was quiet for a while, even though the call "there's a naked ma........" was heard often.
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rac
Shotfirer.
Posts: 87
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Post by rac on Dec 5, 2011 11:48:40 GMT -5
sounds as though baths superintendants were hand picked for the job----wo betide anyone caught in the clean side in dirty clothes-mega bollocking! recall one funny incident when a collier was seen doing a handstand up the wall under his shower, when asked what was that about he replyed "how else can i get the soap suds out the nick of my arse"
classic!
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Post by Sam from Kent on Apr 14, 2012 13:55:27 GMT -5
sounds as though baths superintendants were hand picked for the job----wo betide anyone caught in the clean side in dirty clothes-mega bollocking! recall one funny incident when a collier was seen doing a handstand up the wall under his shower, when asked what was that about he replyed "how else can i get the soap suds out the nick of my arse" classic! Yes they were, They would have been too evil for the Gestapo!! |
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Post by Sam from Kent on Apr 14, 2012 13:58:06 GMT -5
Did you have the steam pipes going through the dirty lockers. WShen you got your HOT clothes out the next day, your socks were rock solid with dried out mud!
The morning ritual was to bang your socks on the wall to soften them up so you could actually put them on!!!
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Post by John on Apr 14, 2012 14:43:40 GMT -5
The ones I worked at were hot air fed Sam, yeah clothes were like concrete..
It was worse at Boulby, boots and socks would be wringing wet with sweat at the end of a shift, plus caked in salt. Next shift they were like glazed pot boots!! Ten minutes underground in that heat they soon got supple again.
Working in very hot conditions does wonders for the feet, God, they stunk!!! My young un used to say "yer feet stink Dad" ;D
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