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Post by ranger on Jun 6, 2011 15:27:00 GMT -5
i started my training in 1951,shuttling between Manvers and Silverwood collieries and Rotherham TEC college doing my first aid certificate at 15,making various tools etc.Then after a few months i went training on the surface haulage at Silverwood,loading pit props and chocks onto skellies among other things,At eighteen i went onto the training face learning packing pan turning and coal cutting then onto the market team.Ifinished up on the Melton field seam,i was one of the team who broke through to make the Melton seam productive along side Fred Kelly Jimmy Green ,Andy Stevens and others,i worked on the Panzer face.
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Post by John on Jun 7, 2011 7:42:31 GMT -5
How about some more history Ranger?? Did you work at other pits? Did you work as a collier all your life or did you go onto to be a Deputy, UM or Manager?? I see by your age you'd have seen the transition between hand got faces and mechanized faces, what machines did you work with??
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Post by ranger on Jun 7, 2011 13:08:32 GMT -5
hi John,i worked at Silverwood colliery from 1951 to 1964 folloowing my father who did 55 yrs service finishing up as foreman on the preparation plant when he retiredand my grand father who wasa collier in1911 and then banksman for the rest of his time. I was a collier at18 on three shifts. The machines i worked on were.undercut cutter driven by compressed air,Panzer disc ,Air guns, drilling holes for the shot firer,inishing up on a face with with Dowty props and skids.Very hard work but i enjoyed every minute because of good mates ,comradeship was second to none . have you seen the Silverwood site ( John Doxey)
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Post by John on Jun 7, 2011 13:25:46 GMT -5
Sounds like a good amount of your time was pre/early mechanisation, the harder days of mining.
Hard to say if I found the Silverwood site John, visited so many, at present I'm researching on line for all the colliery information I can find for the website of this forum. I'm completely rebuilding it to cover all collieries from Vesting day to the end. Big job, one I'm wondering if I'll ever complete!!
Chances are I have visited it John, the link may already be in our links section here.
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Post by spanker on Nov 6, 2011 14:33:24 GMT -5
I joined N.C.B. in 1975 aged 16 as i have said before and now reminisce to my kids what a fantastic start to life we all had (i feel). When i now pass by Grasmoor training centre and see it now it makes you want to roar,tended football fields and runnig track no more,keep off the grass walk around the track they used to roar to us skinny little kids. Apprentiships started there, mining ,mech and elec all together bussed in from all over Derbyshire to learn the trade in the class theory then the practice in the galleries all mentored by old guys who had some sort of disabilities from the pits and had been sidelined. The difference from school and the N.C.B.was we got paid for it !being taught by the best, remember days of being served by a big buxom woman in the canteen wearing low cut t.shirts with the words sweet n bitter on each bussom wot a sight for a young lad 1st thing Monday morning. Having to go to the coalhouse to see a lorry drop tonnes of coal on the floor and then be told to get stuck in lads throw it in the bunker,not understanding the lesson we were to learn, messing about in lesson and being told to get that bag on thee back youth and start running rarnd track until ar tel thee t cum in. Avin t go int galleries and don thee rescuer on and cumin out wee thee pads around your waist. Then we went to Bolsover colliery into the training gallery i think the Tupton seam maybe wrong to be met by colliers who would laugh and offer you your 1st chew you would take it put it in your gob and spew up not many metres more inbye. I hated the ride down that shaft as it was about 1000 m and an upcast shaft which used to buffer the cage i felt, unlike our little sublime ride down ireland colliery downcast shaft a mere 365m deep, no air doors to go through and we used to be open to the elements waiting to go down the pit. Any other people workdown our little family colliery i know John did cos i remember him.
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Post by dazbt on Nov 6, 2011 16:02:19 GMT -5
Great description of your introduction to mining Spanker, liked the Grassmoor canteen bit. I am a bit surprised that a 'Bowser' (is that how you pronounce it?) shaft was 1,000 metres deep though, I did 'stints' at Bolsover, Ireland and Grassmoor T.C. in one form or another over the years.
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Mick
Shotfirer.
Posts: 163
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Post by Mick on Nov 7, 2011 7:58:10 GMT -5
Started in 1966 at Gomersal on pit top,then went to Newton Hill near Wakefield for underground training. Back to gomersal to work on the haulage taken timber in bye to the face. At 18 started face training at gomersal hand filling in the blocking bed seam with a bloke called Tommy English,then Ripping,Gob Drawing,Belting on nights on the hand filling face. All the face's at Gomersal were hand filled up till 1972 when they tried a plough that only lasted for 6 month. When i was a fully trained miner i ended up with a 16 yard stint,the face was only 24ins high and 3 to 4 in of that was water. then in 73 Gomersal shut and i ended up at Wheldale till that shut in 87. After that 3 of us got jobs going round doing salvage work all over the place.
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Post by spanker on Nov 8, 2011 16:26:31 GMT -5
Hey up Mick i was quite lucky to be aparty to the art of solid packing at the gate ends in the late 70s but didn't like the stable holes too dusty and having to learn the art of spinning the powerless cowls over with chock nogs didn't like that practice powered cowls were a lovely invention,old men with great big hearts learnt me the art of packing and it was quite an impressive site to see unlike the machine on a small air gate run.
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rac
Shotfirer.
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Post by rac on Dec 5, 2011 11:24:14 GMT -5
remember grassmoor training centre well attended myself during my apprenticeship between 1965/1969 fond memories i must say and a first step into the real world! recall the running track in particular the instructor i remember we thought was a sadist.he would have us in the gym climbing ropes and all manner of activities and if anyone complained or was heard swearing it was "out round the track!" one instance i remember well was one lad sent running round the track just before we finished,we went outside just as he came round and were giving him some flack "eff off you set of wan--rs "was his reply just as the instructor came out the door."oi round 2 more times he shouted" to howls of laughter from the rest of us.cant remember the instructors name (something --Senior perhaps) can anyone else remember him he was a keep fit fanatic and liked to show is physical prowess off to the lads.
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Post by spanker on Dec 6, 2011 16:43:18 GMT -5
Ayup rac i remember the old guy who used to take us for woodworking at Grassmoor,he was an old collier who had received injuries prior in the pits like em all. Was he there at your time training ? he was the one with the thumb which had been re-sewn on and looked like an old flailing water bagging,god knows how he ordered his ale and picked his nose but i can tell you this he could produce a mean tenon /dovetail joint ! THESE STORY MAKE ME BELLY ACHE BUT THEY ARE ALL TRUE AND WE CAN ALL TELL EM god bless British coal. I had sent you are p.m a few days ago did you get it and did you know them from High Moor.
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rac
Shotfirer.
Posts: 87
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Post by rac on Dec 7, 2011 6:06:10 GMT -5
ayup back spanker cant say i remember the woodworking bloke you mentioned but two blokes i do remember (were like a comedy double act) used to take us for firefighting and first aid in the 2 wooden cabins on the left as you walked down to the pit canteen.one if i remember right was called featherstone can't remember other one.if i remember right they also took us down grassmoor pit to do basic training-sound familiar? still trying to access PM's struggling-will be in touch when manage it. as you say the more you reminisce the more things come back. happy days, you could write a book about some of the characters you came across and a lot of funny incidence's
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Post by spanker on Dec 7, 2011 13:56:44 GMT -5
Fond memories of Wales and Snowdonia yomping up the pig track and down the otherside,skinny dipping in the lakes on a hot baking week in 77 as an apprentice orienteering and team leading. Then getting sun stroke. Visits up to Newcastle for a week and boisterous nights out on the piste in Whitley Bay whey hey some bonnie lasses in that area arl tell thee.
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Post by spanker on Jan 30, 2012 14:36:04 GMT -5
Remember as a mining craft apprentice spending time with various tradesman, a year with the surveyors theodolite underground and up and down the slag heaps and coal stocks on top measuring movement and pit stock. Amending face plans and making cups of tea,having to be very precise and accurate with the way you wrote on the plans or else you had a rollicking off the Dept.head surveyor who at that time was very Victorian in his ways, one would have thought it was the 1870s not 19, i would like to go back and see how the youth of today would have faired, don't think they'd be able to draw a straight line ne mind owt else!(Obviously not all but 50%) Having to spend a few months with the road layers was quite an experience for one so young ,fest lesson was how to avoid officials when tired,we would go half way down a roadway and pick a suitable area which needed attention,bag of dognails and road bolts in cloth bag along with Hessian bag shovel ,pick and hammer. Sit down lad turn yer light out and rest yer ed against that stonedust bag which had been there some while it was obvious that this procedure had taken place many times before and when you see alight coming specially a spotter start throwing dust around and hammering on the rails. Having said that i can say that when you saw a road layer in full throw it was a sight to see, being able to make a turn or a set of switch rails on the junction was very impressive indeed from a tram of straight rails, mark it bend it mark it bend it as yer go along. My little experience with the roadlayers did assist later as when becoming an official one would simply walk past the dinters and mark the rings on exiting at shift end the yardage always seemed to benefit the dinters when asking the advance but the chalk never lied,often caused some arguments am sure some of the gates where twice as long as the surveyors plans.
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Post by John on Jan 30, 2012 15:46:00 GMT -5
I started at Clifton Colliery in 1964, I was 16 1/2 was lucky they allowed me to start an engineering apprenticeship so late. I guess I was allowed as I had almost completed the 1st year tech course for contracting elec apprentices. I had 6 months of Tech work to catch up on plus the regular lessons!! Hard work, but passed OK. We were on the old five year apprenticeship but we were told the new four year was about to be introduced and we would get a few months knocked off of ours if we passed some practical tests towards the end of our time.
I think Daz would probably have been in the same boat.
Anyway, during that first year I completed surface, and underground training and as far as my pit was concerned, once the underground training was finished, I hardly ever saw any surface work again. I did the usual 1 week every six at area training centre, Advanced Apprentice Training, then day release at tech, Arnold and Carlton near Gedling Colliery.
Back at my pit, I was under supervision most of the time with one or another of the electricians, most were pretty good and knew their jobs. Clifton was probably the last Colliery to be on the old Mech/Elec scheme, so got greasy and oily helping to repair breakdowns on shearer haulage ends, disc changes and jib and chain repairs to cutters.....Hated that side of the job, if I wanted to do fitting work, I'd have signed on in the fitting department! It came in handy years later though.
I did my face training with one of our staff, assisting on breakdowns and maintenance.
One of the great jobs we apprentice elecs got on Day shifts usually once a month was "lamping up". Two of us would pick two boxes of lamps up from the stores each, start off at the outbye bunker and work our way inbye, then down the trunk belts changing burned out lamps. Just a chance to "goof off".. ;D
During my last year we were asked to do a mock practical test at the training centre to check if the Instructors had allowed enough time for practical tests, they seemed satisfied, and the first annual tests were introduced after that.
Well it finally came around for our little group to go to Bentinck Training centre for our final practical trade test, none of us had any idea what they the Instructors required of us....We all failed ;D
As the feller told us, we all did fine, but we were supposed to talk our way through the tests, ie, "I'd make sure I can have power by phoning the Deputy, then when he says OK, I'd isolate, earth the circuit then pull the cables plug" etc Needless to say a month later we all passed.... ;D The rest is history, we were let loose to electrocute everyone.. ;D
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Post by quimbyj1745 on Mar 13, 2015 14:08:14 GMT -5
I started at Binley Colliery, south of Coventry, in Aug 1955 Initial training was at Wood End colliery(upcast shaft to Birch Coppice colliery) and Nuneaton Tech. Then back to Binley on supplies. Face training at !8 years then packing on 38's nine ft face.I was also doing day release at Nuneaton Tech leading to HNC in mining, this was followed by a 3yr National Diploma course in Mining Engineering, leading to managers ticket and CE status. Appointed grade 2 Deputy at Dexter Colliery in 1963 quickly followed by grade 1 Deputy and then Overman for 13's Two yard district. This face was initially worked with the floor mounted Trepanner later replaced with BJD rope hauled shearer. I did a 12 month DPT mainly at Birch Coppice on face installation and then training the BJD shearer drivers on each of 3 shifts on 71's Seven ft face. Following DPT I was appointed shift supervisor at Coventry Colliery on the Afternoon shift. My next appointment was as Undermanager Newdigate Colliery and then Haunchwood Colliery to its closure in1966 and then back to Newdigate until 1968. This was about the time that the South Midlands Area was formed and I was offered a move to South Derbyshire at Cadley Hill Colliery as Undermanager. In 1974 I moved to South Leicester Colliery as Deputy Manager then in1976 back to Cadley Hill as Deputy Manager. On my travels again in 1984, Deputy Manager to the Rawdon Donnisthorpe Measham complex. Final move came in 1985, Manager at Cadley Hill. A dream fulfilled, from the age of 11, I wanted to be, like my father, a Colliery Manager. Cadley Hill ceased production in1988 and I took early retirement in 1989 after completion of an intensive salvage operation. From my first appointment to Undermanager I became active in Union activities being Undermanager & Deputy Managers representative at NEC level of BACM and later the Managers rep for South Midlands Area on the NEC. I was lucky to work for some great Managers in my career, probably the greatest influence was Chris Boyle, the Manager at Cadley hill in the late 60's early 70's but great Managers need A great team and great workers. Cadley Hill was blessed with both.
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