Night shifts

[Wheldale]

What affects did working night shifts have on a miners family? Someone who worked years on nights, did they sort the tea out for the family before work? Did they take the kids to school in the morning? When did they sleep?

[John]

Sept 16, 2013 13:20:45 GMT -5 Wheldale said:

What affects did working night shifts have on a miners family? Someone who worked years on nights, did they sort the tea out for the family before work? Did they take the kids to school in the morning? When did they sleep?

I was dead to the world after a night shift, fell to sleep many a morning on the "karzy" LOL
Kids would have been late for school if they had waited for me, their Mum walked them there.

My last nights were regular nights, boy was I glad to get off them, I was crankier than a rabid dog most of the time, I finished as Leading hand, that entailed being on my feet all shift, sometimes missing my snap, and the odd time or two having to leave the paperwork and go back underground to sort a problem that had shown up near the end of shift.

I did once fall to sleep at the wheel driving home!! I had a 50 mile drive home, was almost home too when I just "died" at the wheel, I ran off the road, it was the bumping about on the hard shoulder that woke me up, scare the crap out of me!! After that If I started nodding at the wheel, I pulled over, got out and walked around the car a couple of times to wake up.

In the UK, my last two jobs were at BG's East Leake gypsum mine, (Marblaegis), so only had to do one week of nights about every month, then on to Boulby where it was Mon, Tues-Days....Wed, Thurs...Afters....Fri, Sat, Sun...nights......Mon, Tues.....days off....Wed, Thurs...Days......Fri, Sat, Sun Afters.....Mon, Tues...Nights.....Wed, Thurs off...Fri, Sat, Sun....Days etc ......8 hour shifts plus any breakdown overtime.

Odd shifts I know, but better than five straight nightshifts!!!

Back to Oz when I was on nights, missus worked full time, so I'd have dinner ready for her, then go back to bed for a couple of hours, then hit the road for work. When I pulled into the driveway, the Missus was already at work.
When I went down to swing shift, I'd have dinner ready for when she walked in from work, we'd eat, then I took off for work.
I'd be home by about 2-00-2030am, so did my best not to disturb her sleep. She'd be gone when I woke up at around 8-30am... I'd have all day to get jobs done around the house...Great shift that!!

[merlin]

I worked nights regular for 20 yrs great it was no bosses about use see the day shift in the baths looking knackred I would to sleep from 8oclock till 4oclock iliked better in the winter

[John]

I remember a face that was weighting bad, not big enough chocks on it was probably the cause. So it cut 24 hours a day seven days a week for a while. Nights, belts stopped, not good!! Switch man phoned outbye bunker, all OK out there, so he called the inbye bunker, belts were going there, 41's junction, no problems, no answer from the top of the gate belt.
Deputy set off up the gate, couple of minutes later, belt starts up. We'd got a spare man on the gate belt switch, a young blackfeller, nobody knew his full name and he used to call himself "Sunshine".
Deputy arrives back, boy was he pissed off!! Effin switchlad had got the first aid stretcher out and was fast asleep on it with a couple of blankets over him.
Not too much later when the Senior Overman showed up, old George wasn't a bad Overman, but he got rather peeved if he caught anyone asleep U/G. "Where's the Depty"??
"On the Face George".
George got on the tannoy and shouted for the Deputy, "getch sen dahn here to the gate end"

George wasn't amused, he told the Deputy in no uncertain terms he wouldn't stand finding his men asleep, but what peeved him off more was finding a man asleep on a first aid stretcher with blankets over him.
Deputy told George he'd kicked his arse once over the same thing and had lost about 15 minutes production over the issue.
George set off back down the main gate, wasn't long before the phone rang, Sunshine had been caught AGAIN, asleep on the first aid stretcher.
George had the Deputy send a spare man to man the switch, Sunshine was sent out the pit and told to come back in the morning and present himself to the Manager for discipline.
Sunshine was lucky, Manager just kicked his arse and sacked him, George told us all the next night he fully expected the Manager to file charges under the M&Q Act.

George caught me asleep once, but that was in the surface electric shop, he just gave me a tongue lashing.

[smshogun]

I never minded nights, it was always home job week and each fitter had a "pit topper" to do their home jobs and our underground fitters shared our shop with the blacksmiths so we had access to all the blacksmiths equipment, it wasn't uncommon to hear a horse on nights as both Tomo and Dick regularly shoe'd horses on nights, and Tomo had three horses of his own.

My night was always Thursdays so it would be have my car in the shop for servicing and no messing about jacking them up as we had a lifting frame which attached to the overhead crane, being the youngest and the highest qualified of our team I regularly had Friday as well as our chargeman hated nights and his rest days were automatically booked for his first 8 Friday night shifts, and he didn't come on the rest.

It wouldn't be unusual to see a cupboard full of valves which were bronze, on the forge being melted for casting and we did some lovely castings of everything from small statues to hanging basket brackets, or stripping scrap aluminium cored cables for its aluminium for casting. Wrought iron gates were a regular item being made and most men at the pit had them including the security men as they adopted a position of "we have a budget for losses" and if it wasn't exceeded it wasn't an issue and nobody asked any questions. We had steam heating and rope dubbin and we made an injector for injecting it into vehicle cavities as a early rustproofing method and any car with dubbin applied lasted for years as injecting it with steam sealed everything. Autumn saw most cars being treated.

For me it was often a chance to build my racing engines and it wasn't unusual to see me boring a block or modifying and skimming a cylinder head, or casting aluminium components long out of production for classic vehicles.

Our manager was in touch and knew everyone by name, and was no fool, we had a workbench on wheels with a top which would rotate so the top would be flat and the underside would have various jigs tacked to it, many fitters on afters had been to a funeral and were nigh on drunk at the wake so me and Mick went on nights early, and did 6 till 6 and about 8pm we turned the table top over as we were making garden seat frames; at that time we had a district called 97's and my house number was 97; and in walked the manager. He asked where these were going and I said 97s and he said in that case you had had better make a pair for 2s, I asked where 2s was and his answer was succinct and to the point.

He said "if you are making a pair of garden seats for your house then you can make a pair for mine and that is 2s and left us to it, two garden seats were added to our list and went to the joiners to have their slats made and duly delivered to 2s by our van driver. 

[ann]

My dad (born in the 1920s) used to tell of his dad working nights and how as kids they used to listen at the bottom of the stairs during the day when he was home sleeping - "dad's having a nightmare again". Apparently there used to be shouts to look out as the roof was coming down. As kids they were more fascinated than realising the horror of it I think. I don't think they saw a great deal of him - dad would sometimes go to the pit to walk home with his dad at the end of the shift - he remembers peeping into the lamp room.

[smshogun]

My favourite was the men working nights during the summer months, it wasn't unusual for many men to sleep outside on a sun lounger or similar and expect to nod off for a couple of hours and get up and go to bed, you always spotted those who didn't wake up and slept through as they came to work as red as lobsters and usually had a white hand and arm print across their torsos.