Dave Smith...aka Tut Tut

[John]

A little story that Graham Jones reminded me of a couple of years back.
Dave Smith was an electrician underground on the face. Dave stuttered real bad, hence the name Tut Tut, BUT, if any us apprentices called him that, he got rather angry!!
Well, near the end of the shift, Dave would empty his tools out of his toolbag and count them, once, twice three times, then when he was satisfied, he'd put them away in the bag and lock them in the tool box provided my management.
This shift Graham was his apprentice, and while Dave was preoccupied counting his tools, Graham picked up a spanner while Dave was counting, he hid the spanner, Dave counted once twice, three times, four times, five times until he conceeded a spanner was missing!!!

I did ask Graham Jones if he'd put the missing spanner back, he said no.......Poor Tut Tut, he must still be looking for that spanner....

[John]

I worked for British Gypsum for a couple of years at the their Marblaegis Mine at East Leake near Loughborough.
We didn't have any toilet facilities underground, and if you were took short, you grabbed a toilet roll and took off into the old workings...All perfectly safe, save for the odd rat or two.
One of the shift mine foremen got took short one day shift and went for a trot into the old workings. Found the perfect spot to relieve himself and proceeded to "read his newspaper" Along came a couple of nosey, nay, hungry rats after the foremans "left over lunch" The foreman picked up a rock, or as they said a scob, and threw it at the rats. Instead of running off , the rats got irate and attacked him......Foreman trying to run away from rats with his overalls around his ankles.........

[John]

Another story from Marlaegis Mine..I was on night shift as electrician, phone in the workshop rang and it was the mine foreman, "Can you get the Landrover from outside the foremans office, drive down to the control room and pick me up John"?
"Sure Jack, whats up"?
Jack was pissing himself laughing at the other end..."I'll tell you when you get down here" he said.
Anyway, I went out on to the main road, picked the Landrover up from outside the foremans office and drove down to the control room.
Jack was waiting for me, tears streaming down his cheeks, he was in fits, something must be hillerious!! He said to me, "wait here".
He walked back to the control room, brought out a young feller who was a conveyor attendant, told him to climb in the back of the Landrover and we set off to this fellers belt job.
After a few minutes Jack came back and we set off for the workshops, Jack just couldn't stop laughing all the way.
Turned out, the young bloke had seen a ghost, eight feet high coming down the belt road, so he had run off as fast as his little fat legs could carry him to his cabin at the drive head of one of his belts, picked up his snap bag and ran all the way to the control room.
Funny thing was....the roof of the workings and roads was a little over 6 feet in that area!

[John]

I don't Daz, BUT, if you'd known that young feller!!!! We only had one instance of a ghost at that mine, and the guy was a fitter who told me about his experience, even to that day he was scared!!!!
Same bloke in the diesal fitting shop, last shift before Christmas. We came in early to finish early before midnight.
Not being a dirty mine like coal pits, he decided he was just going to put a pair of clean overalls on over his street clothes
for his shift, then when he got out was going to have a couple of pints at the works club, which would be open very late!
He had to change the torque convertor on a Scooptram that shift, not really a hard job as the previous fitter had made a start. BUT he hadn't drained the transmission fluid off and hadn't notified out fitter.
I'd got nothing to do, so I gave him a hand, I climbed on top of the scooptram, and the fitter put a vee belt around the torque convertor. I took the weight with the belt while he undid the rest of the bolts. He took a couple of screwdrivers and prised it free from the vehicle pit where he stood underneath the machine...*&^%$ expletives came from beneath me, more *&^%*& Whats up I asked, *&^&*&^ more expletives, he'd got covered from head to toe in transmission fluid, Shells finest telus oil!!!

[John]

29 were a better vintage, though a little thinner.
And warrabaht that other stuff that replaced the Telus in fluid couplings before going to the aqua couplings??? Bloody stuff 'ud tek the skin off of an orange!
We tried the Aqua fluid couplings on the belt drives at Boulby, but went back to the oil type.

[John]

We used to have a fluid drive "fusable" plug we carried during the 60's, would have taken an oxy acetylene torch to "blow" them. We called them dreadnaughts, to be used as a last resort on stalled face chains!! Filled with brazing spelter.