A START..................................!!

[dazb]

As a fresh faced kid amongst dozens of others I queued on the steps of Woolley Colliery canteen, each of us bravely relating which part of Barnsley we lived in, in hopes that we weren’t disclosing our tribal allegiance to an unrecognised enemy from an adjacent village. We exchanged the names of whichever pit out of the thirty two in Barnsley that we hoped to work at, which pits our dad’s worked at, what kind of job he did and the job we wanted to do. A gaggle of schoolboys just one NCB medical inspection and final interview away from becoming a gaggle of coal miners.
In the process of waiting for the door of the Medical Room at the other side of the canteen entrance to open and being ushered inside by the nursing sister, there were two fights and in the process of one of these a brick wall was demolished, a wall that for fifty or more years had survived the impact and jostling of thousands of homeward bound colliers, but now lay as a pile of rubble, easily accomplished by a tiny group of would be next generation jostlers, not even signed up for the union yet but already breaking down walls.

[John]

I missed out on all that Daz, started with the NCB at sixteen and a half. So I started the first years course half way through and had to catch up pretty quick. So met my comrades in the classroom!

[dazb]

Blue double doors thrown open and there she stood, six foot of navy blue matriarchal menace, “Cigarettes out, no talking, listen for your names and then in single file, form a queue here, Abbott, Allott, Beattie, Beaumont …………” I had been standing somewhere in the middle of this pack of would-be miners and never expected to hear my name so close to the first ones called up, so with a sense of near panic I started fighting my way through in an attempt to avoid being flailed alive by this Clinical Inquisitor, “You, big lad, yes you, stop pushing, we don’t have bullies here”. “Clarke. A, Clarke. D, Constantine” she yelled in my ear as I brushed gently past her to stand inline behind Allott. Standing there in the same tweed sports jacket, grey flannels the same brown slip on shoes with a hole in each sole and carboard liners that I had worn for my preliminary interview with Mr Kennedy, my future manager. I had spent more effort in trying not to display my soleless poverty to Mr Kennedy by sitting with my feet glued in concentration to his office carpet than in answering his questions as to why I wanted to be a fitter and discussing any relevant technical achievements (or not) gained at grammar school. I had felt confident when I set of to catch the bus to Woolley Colliery for my medical, but had the edge knocked off me when I had found my way up to the canteen and medical centre to discover a group of lads obviously there for the same reason, but all dressed in jeans, leather jackets and mohair jumpers, not one single sports jacket amongst them all until I got there,
Oh boy! A glowing example of a sore thumb in a square hole. The discomfort of being the odd one out was overcome to some extent with the surge of defensive adrenalin that came at the time of first argument developing amongst the lads and at the start of the second round of fisticuffs my confidence has been reinstalled, on the basis that no-one had taken offence at the difference of my appearance at least not to the extent of wanting to batter me in the process of a free for all, but then along came Sister Smith, who had immediately singled me out for the first embarrassing chiding, fancy calling me “Big Lad” and a “Bully”, just like being back at junior school and here’s me believing that I was on the first step to being accepted as a man.
If I had known then that there was much worse to come at the hands of this Urine Taking Amazon, I would have gone straight home and applied for an errand boy’s job with the Coop.

[John]

I don't recall an interview Daz, I remember taking an aptitude written test, medical, but can't remember an interview!

I was working as an apprentice for an electrical contractor in Nottingham at about four quid a week for 44 hours a week.
Nottingham Evening Post ad for apprentices with the NCB, training, education and a secure future in the modern coal industry the ad said, a full page. Then I saw starting pay eight quid a week with six monthly pay raises! This has got to be better than what I was on at the moment!
So I got pen and paper together and applied and posted it off.
Now the hard part!!! Dad was a lorry driver and set in his ways, as long as I learn't a trade he wasn't too much bothered, but going down pit, now that could be another story.
After dinner, Dad was sat reading his Evening Post, them days a broadsheet newspaper, so his head and face were hidden...It was now or never as I will need his signature for the indentures if I was accepted.
"Dad..."
"Yeh.."
"Errr, what would you say if I wanted to go down the pit"
"Over my dead body" He replied..
Oh well we will wait and see what he says if I get accepted.
I was working out in Newark on a supermarket job when I had a reply to go and take the test, medical etc, so the bloke I was working with covered for me. I set off from Newark on the square wheel express to Nottingham, caught the bus to Cinderhill Unit, where medicals and aptitude tests and interviews took place.
I hardly recall much from that day.
I went home and just watched out for a letter from the NCB after that. About two to three weeks later, I got home from work and my Mother gave me an official looking letter with the NCB logo on the front.
I ripped it open and found I'd been accepted and instructions to attend the Training Officer at Clifton Colliery on such and such date at 8-00am .

Now the rough bit! "Errrr Dad"
"yeh..."
I've got a job as an apprentice electrician at Clifton pit"
I was expecting his newspaper to come crashing down and getting the biggest earful he'd ever given anyone! To my surprise he just said "You'll not like it"
What an anti climax, and there was I expecting to have to argue with him for my new job!

I put my notice in the next morning, and on the date mentioned arrived as instructed at Clifton Pit, just up the road from where I lived. I knocked on the door of the Training Officer's office, and introduced myself, My they call me Ally Anderson he said, right, lets get you your pit gear, he took me to the stores, got me a pair of overalls, belt, boots and helmet, took me to the baths and arranged a clean and dirty locker and keys for them, then back to his office.
"Right, off to Hucknall training centre" he said after I'd filled out the papers he'd place in front of me, "and here's a bus pass to get you there"
"take your overalls, boots and helmet with you, you'll need those"
And he gave me instructions on how to get to the training centre.
I arrived a little over an hour later, where I was placed with the other lads I'd serve my time with, given a list of things I'd need for tech, books loose leaf folders etc, that I'd need next week.

So that was it! a few months of catch up, surface training, then Easter break, back to our pits. Later that year we did out underground training, then end of year after exams we were at out pits full time and then day release for tech lessons.

[dazb]

Well I always knew that I was different, I never have been able to get anything in the right order, I managed to get myself born before both my sisters so I became the baby sitter, I met and married the wrong woman first, my very first car was a vintage Wolseley for £25 when really I should be looking to buy one as an investment now at £25,000, I swam back stroke before breast stroke and my very first investments were in Powergen as opposed to British Gas or Telecom.
But my enrollement went like this; insider information advised me to send a letter of introduction and ask for a specific job, interview with an NCB Central Workshop Manager, then area medical, interview with Area Training Officer, start work at Shafton Workshops, join in a six month long Preliminary Engineering Training Course one month from its completion without ever becomining involved with the statutory Electrical and Machining aspects, get passed through that and was then deployed fitting "sodding" great giant feather keys by hand on the shop floor some six weeks after posting the first letter. Underground training, CPS then face training, got a tool bag and spanners, shoved into a van and shot off all over the Area on shearer breakdowns and installations at any time of night or day........with little change for the rest of my life apart from the fact that the NCB van was exchanged for a car of my own, later a company car and eventually British Airways, but always a coalface with a shearer nearly as confused as I was at the end of it.

[dazb]

PART THREE.................

Once everybody’s name had been called and the lady nursing sister had determined that three lads had failed to arrive, or possibly arrived and retreated on witnessing her welcoming performance, we were allowed into the waiting room. Twenty lads all in party mood, six chairs, but sadly no music…………….”Right stop all that squabbling, pick the chairs up and try, just try to behave like adults, the first six names sit on the chairs, the rest stand in order, alright?”
“I could have joined the army” whispered the lad next to me, “But I didn’t think I could stand the discipline, I wonder if she’s really an overman dressed up as a nurse?”.
“Next, Beattie, date of birth, address?”
“OK now take that glass and provide a sample, keep hold of it and then sit and wait in the next room for the other nurse.”
So, there I am sat amidst the first group of medical examinees, each gazing into a conical glass of his own produce and each probably suffering the same depths of humiliation, thinking the same thoughts, wishing for same thing. That is to say, ten yards deeper than Woolley number two shaft, thoughts of the winning goal on Saturday and wishing that someone other than himself was holding the jar of urine in such public surroundings.
The Clarke twins followed close behind me and both went into the tiny annexed corner set aside for providing the samples, although no one could see the action it didn’t take a lot of effort to gather that there was some sort of problem…………. “I can’t, I’m telling yer I just can’t. I am trying.”
“Well give it here, I’ll do it for yer. Hold yer bloody glass steady, look at that all over me shoes yer moron”
The act of deceptive, brotherly caring was apparent to all in the room, except the perhaps the prettier second nurse who was interviewing Abbott at the time. Both Abbott and this nurse had their backs to the rest of us but we could all hear the conversation, at least in part, childhood illnesses, family medical history, asthma, bronchitis, smallpox, wooden legs, cuddly toys??? Abbott was weighed and measured then brought back to the desk where the questioning became even stranger;
Pointing to something on the desk the nurse asked him what colour the ladies’ bikini bottoms were, then for a number, Abbott’s replies being green and thirty six respectively, I made a mental notes at this point…
The others before me went through exactly the same ritual, handing the sample jar over to be labelled by the nurse,weighing, measuring, answering the questions regarding their own and family ailments and physical failings, followed by the bikini question and in all cases the answer was green but the number reply varied somewhat.
My turn, handing the sample over was the easy bit, I had no idea as whether I had suffered from any of the list of childhood ailments apart from an unforgettable bout of mumps and the fact that my sister was once thought to have had scarlet fever but it turned out to be something else. Six foot tall and ten stone ten pound was easy, but then I was shown a page full of coloured bubbles and asked the question that I had memorised from the repetitive interrogation of all my foregoers;
“What colour is the lady’s bikini bottoms?”……………..What lady? What bikini? The page was just a heap of variously coloured bubbles, no Spic and Span posing beauty for me to evaluate the colour of her beach-wear………….”I can’t see a lady”
“There” the nurse said tracing her finger around the pages middle section of pastel coloured bubbles, still nothing but bubbles to be seen. Being of grammar school education I had learned one lesson in life and that was never to be short of an answer when asked a direct question, but having an upbringing reared on a pit terrace row I had also learned to play canny, so I lied and said “Green.”
“Good.” said the nurse, “And what number do you see now?” as she turned the page, bloody hell, it looked exactly like the previous page, full of bubbles but no numbers or even a bikini. Another memory supported guess; “Err, thirty six?”
“No, try again”
“Twenty two?”
“No, try another page, what number is that?”………………still just bubbles.
“Err, is it seven?”
“No it’s two, try another page.”
“OK that’s eight.”
“No, it’s three, try another.”
My eyes were now beginning to focus on the slight collation of colours within these bubbles; “Ah yes, now that is twenty two.”
“No it’s seventy seven”……………Oh dear!!
“What does that mean then?”
“Well this is a colour blindness test and you haven’t got any numbers right yet, your sevens are twos, your eights are threes and vice versa”
“What does that mean?”
“Well if you are colour blind instead of seeing a number seven you see a totally different number such as one hundred, but you mix up sevens and twos and threes and eights.”
“Does that mean I am colour blind then?”
“No not at all, it just means that you are illiterate.”

[Clive]

By the time it came for the class of 80 to leave school the western area comprised of just 8 pits from Lancs to North Wales. The 60’s had finished all the Rossendale pits off and the only remaining pit was Hapton Valley Burnley belonging the NCB and two private pits, one in Burnley (Simmys) and the Brig in Rossendale. Father was at the Valley and doing his best to put me off but he stood no chance. I wanted to go down on the mining side but, being an electrician he wanted to get me a trade so put me down for a mechanic. That was a laf. All me mates could dismantle motor bikes in their bedrooms, but me …. Well I couldn’t bang a nail in a trolley (bogey) without bending it over.

As it was there were a few of us in our year at school that went to the pit (Jane Horrocks went to Hollywood, but she never got to go on a plough face). So it was across to the Valley for an intelligence test!!! I think even the names part was multiple choice. This passed it was an interview. As it was I had done a big project in History at school about the local pits so that went well and also by fluke I recognised a piston ring. I think it must have been the only mechanical device I knew and just guessed right. Father was insistent on the trade side as he used to wind deputies up when they ordered him around the district telling them to ‘****! And by the way when the pit shuts you’re a road sweeper whilst I’m still an electrician!’ Well dad you were nearly right but when the pit shut this deputy became a window cleaner. The next step was to go for a medical so it was off to Anderton house In an NCB mini bus!!! Wow. The only other lad from our school in Rossendale to go to the Valley that year was Tussy. Another lad went to Agecroft and a few went down the private mines.

So there we were one morning at 6 am in the Valley canteen not so bright eyed with a load of Burnley lads. Next town… different language and they were all dead gobby. Me and Tussy sat quietly at the back of the van whilst the others were going on and on ‘He’s a gait I were a gait…. A gait this a gait that. One thing for sure there were a lot of gaits in Burnley

So last day at school was 30 June but sadly no first day at pit… We had to go to Old Boston so after years at school we was back to school only this time we had to wear bright orange overalls and a big yellow helmet on us yeds which shouted… ‘Im a trainee please grease my nuts on a daily basis!!’ (Which was thankfully one thing I avoided?) One lad though who was full of mouth was not so lucky. I rounded M6 tail gate one day to find this very lad on the floor with half a dozen big tackle lads riving him to bits filling his mouth with stone dust and rubbing rope oil into his goolies. Of course it would be the natural reaction to dive in and help sort these rough bullies out….Yea right and get more of the same? No I sat down on the bait seat very quiet blending into the background. ‘Keep quiet - keep your knackers clean,’ was my motto, and it worked.

The big difference between School and Old Boston was It was boring…No I mean really BORING. And it shouldn’t have been cause all that was taught was pit so it should have been great. The first 2 weeks (which took years) was induction. Every few hours we were given sheets of paper to fill in the blanks EG. My name is******** I want to be a ***** we dig ****, all that was missing was a story about a dog and a big blue ball. Another disturbing thing was the instructors, they all had various bits missing; arms, eyes, loads of fingers and how did they come to mislay all these body parts? Well by pursuing the career we had now entered To emphasis this fact they kept us all entertained with training videos (well a bit before videos actually) They weren’t your average promotional films about how by following the correct training you would be a ruddy complexioned happy chappy in your new job. No they had a higher body count than the films I would have expected if I had joined the army.

They would get 30 or so of us together in a room telling us they were about to show us a film. There we would crowd all excitedly carrying on as young lads do. Out would go the lights and there on the screen would be a pit…Yes a real pit! (We had only worked for the NCB for 6 months and so hadn’t actually been down a pit yet…Still no point rushing is there plenty of time yet. Well actually no as some pits would be closed by the time we got there.). I digress..Back to the film. There before us at Celluloid main colliery we saw a nice little choo choo train with lots of mine cars. Whistle whistle toot toot clackity clack down the track but oh dear…The air doors are closed…Bother!! Stop the train and out gets the driver but my oh my what a long train…Yes what a long walk driver Bob has to follow the walking track all the way round the mine cars, open the air doors and walk all the way back to his choo choo again. But no! Driver Bob has a better idea squeeze past the loco, open the doors and squeeze past the loco again. Off he trots whistling a happy tune but wait…Deary me poor Bob forgot to put the hand brake on his loco and now its creeping forwards….Now driver Bob is fast between the loco and air door frame and still the loco keeps coming all million tones of it. Poor Bob what a horrid shade of blue he now is and all that cracking from his broken body.

Next film, another loco but this time about not leaning out of the cab whilst driving. Here’s Bob again doing some shunting. Oh dear some air doors and as we know Bob and air doors don’t go together. What’s Bob doing now? He’s leaning out of the cab looking backwards at the mine cars Look out…! Too late Bob’s head is now jammed between loco and air door frame and bursts like an egg. Young lads stare at the screen semi traumatized. Never mind didn’t want to be a loco driver anyroad, just wanted to work on the face. And as luck would have it next up is ‘Bob the face man’ (Must have had a head transplant as he’s alright now). Getting near done time and Bob’s stuck in the middle of the face… Can’t be bothered to crawl through all those chocks and clamber over all those rams so why not get a ride on the pans? Brill Idea. Happy smiles as Bob passes other face men struggling through the chocks ha ha. Nearly at the gate now best get off. OH NO!!! Bob’s welly has got fast between the flight bars and he cant get off the pans…Cant reach the pull wires and he’s at the face end….Film cuts to shot of stage loader, there is a blood curdling scream and Bob’s welly complete with bleeding stump comes up the stage loader….

Oh well perhaps we can work in the headings instead and as luck would have it our last film is about headings. Big bonus one of our instructors stars in it. Motto of tale? Don’t use hand picks close to your mate. Working on canch tidying up when Val’s mate implants a hand pick in his forehead completely polaxing him.

Ten years later whilst working at Green Clough I was going to the heading end. We had a small air powered panzer called a ‘Cob’ I think. At the heading end we had some middle leggers and the pans went through some water. Rather than plodge through the wet in a narrow space I jumped on the pans and guess what…? Yes my welly got stuck. Instantly my mind went back to Old Boston and Bob’s bleeding stump on the stage loader. Luckily the Cob was a gutless wonder and I managed to stall it pull my foot out of the welly and get very wet, but very relieved. Another thing, whilst at Ayle and driving the loco I NEVER drove it from outside the cab and always put the handbreak on as to the book. So all those films… Well the good old NCB certainly got summat right.

[aardvark]

dazb said:

As a fresh faced kid amongst dozens of others I queued on the steps of Woolley Colliery canteen, each of us bravely relating which part of Barnsley we lived in, in hopes that we weren’t disclosing our tribal allegiance to an unrecognised enemy from an adjacent village. We exchanged the names of whichever pit out of the thirty two in Barnsley that we hoped to work at, which pits our dad’s worked at, what kind of job he did and the job we wanted to do. A gaggle of schoolboys just one NCB medical inspection and final interview away from becoming a gaggle of coal miners.
In the process of waiting for the door of the Medical Room at the other side of the canteen entrance to open and being ushered inside by the nursing sister, there were two fights and in the process of one of these a brick wall was demolished, a wall that for fifty or more years had survived the impact and jostling of thousands of homeward bound colliers, but now lay as a pile of rubble, easily accomplished by a tiny group of would be next generation jostlers, not even signed up for the union yet but already breaking down walls.

I went for my medical at Wooley. I'd stayed on at school for a year so was seventeen when I started . I made the mistake o going out drinking the night before my medical on the bus there most of the lads were smoking by the time we got to the roundabout at the end of the pit lane I was going green , I jumped off the bus and threw up over the fence then had to walk what seemed like a mile up to the pit. We had to go to Manvers for a chest x-ray when they called my name I pulled open the door it must have been lead lined because it was so heavy I couldn't stop it and it smashed my hand into the wall.

[dazbt]

I left the NCB for a while and I had to have a new medical when I went back. This time the medical was held at Barrow (by coincidence), I went through it all OK then the doctor said that because I'd had asthma as a kid he couldn't grade me fit for underground, I explained that I had previously worked underground for six years and never had any problems with my chest, a real medical proffesional, a man prepared to stand by his own tecnical evaluation and convictions just glanced up from his desk and says, "Oh, OK then" and marked me up as A1, if that same doctor could listen to my chest today his conscience would choke him.

[gaz]

Moorgreen Training Centre beckoned me and school pal John Maddock, our mates were to stay on for their GCE exams but we decided to go for a job(brave move for two 15 year old lads)
On the B6 Ilkeston bus we found Moorgreen and took a test and John went as a Fitter and me a Mining Craftapprentice . Later that summer we started training then on to Newtsead Colliery the rest is history ......

[erichall]

At Grammar School, I did excellently up to 'O' levels, but unfortunately made a mess of A Levels. Not having any idea as to what sort of career to pursue, I asked advice of the one family member who appeared to be a bit more knowledgeable than anyone else. he was at the time President of the Yorks area NACODS. He eventually suggested that I try to make a career out of Coal Mining. He took time to explain all the benefits that could acrue, and all the down side. On his advice, and much to my family's disgust I 'went dahn t'pit'
Dad, an ex Miner invalided out of the mines and working in the steel industry (he actually worked more years in steel than he ever did in the pits, but still grumbled about 'bleeding Sheffielders- all they can do is to mash tea, and half a dozen colliers could shift 100 of 'em) went mad. 'I didn't send thee to Grammar School to go darn't pit'. All his family were miners, as were all my mother's 8 brothers. However, I persevered, probably 'cos Dad said No and I'm of excellent stubborn Yorkshire stock.
My first trip was to the Divisional HQ at wakefield, 2 bus rides away, for a rather searching interview before I was accepted for a 'Student Apprenticeship in Mining'. I then had to go to a colliery somewhere (Ican't remember, but probably Barnsley main) for all the Medicals- strip, cough, fill this, what is the colour of the lady's bikini, what's the number etc. etc. I was surprised at the depth of the medical, but passed wfc and told to report to BMain training Centre on a specific date.
My first learning experience came after changing into pit clothes, was to NOT be near the to me ancient Deputy or other. I learned this the hard way. On the way to the shaft, whilst walking alongside him, I heard him mutter 'Carry this' which turned out to be an ancient 'Ringrose' automatic detector, and very heavy. he training galleries were classrooms in the old pit bottom roadways, where we were shown among other things how to 'cast coal' from the shovel into a pile, making use of the polished surface of the shovel, an art I still possess 50 years later. The thing I remember most was the visits we made to the inbye, hand-filled faces, which we were never allowed to get near to. I still had no idea what went on in that mystery world when I left.
After I had 'passed though' my initial training, I was informed that I would be spending time at the Mines Mechanisation Centre on West Bar at Sheffield. Here I would be taught to file, saw, use 'blue' to get a flat surface, and eventually make a test piece of wonderful ingenuity. The only really bright moment came when once a week we had a Maths lesson (my favourite subject). The standard was so low to me ( once received 99% in a GCE type Exam and had had the 1% deducted because the columns weren't straight) that my initial intention was to achieve a MINIMUM of 100%. Imagine my horror when one of the questions was marked wrong! I checked it several times then complained. 'That's the answer in the book,Lad' I was told. It took some persuasion,a dn the assistance of a couple of the instructors to prove that the book was wrong!!! What a concieted prat I must have been.
After that it was back to work with the Surveyors at Barrow Colliery, where I quickly learned never to go underground without knee-pads. Whilst working in the drifts we were called to the site of a serious accident in the middle of one of the hand-filled faces, to measure up the site etc. My poor knees. I never went out of the pit head baths without wearing pads again.