Bob Williamson P5

Chapter 9. The Hucknall Heroes

Why the Hucknall Heroes? Well, we had a visit by a reporter from a national newspaper and he wrote, ‘As the laughter rings out beneath Papplewick Moor, the Hucknall Heroes are still on the job’. Wasn't that nice of him?

Hucknall No.l pit was in the centre of the town, it was known by everyone as Bottom Pit. No one can remember where Top Pit was, if in fact it existed at all.

Geological conditions were against Hucknall because they were working the Deep Soft coal seam and it was only 17 inches high. (All the coal seams have names). If you went onto the coalface you had to go all the way through, there was not enough roof to turn round. The cutter teams were issued with elbow pads as well as the standard kneepads. As might be expected a lot of men left during this period.

The scandal, the intrigue and who was sleeping with whom, centred on the pit. Almost all of the townsfolk had at least one family member who worked at Bottom Pit.

It was not unusual to have three generations working underground at the same time; Grandfather, Father and Son. It was the same in the very many pit villages throughout the coalfields. Insular, but fiercely protective and loyal to their own. These were the ties that bound us into that tightly knit group who faced the daily grind with all the dangers. Many men didn't live their full life span, tired out at fifty.

The electricians, on Seam Chargeman Ray Parker's shift, were a madcap bunch of guys. We worked together, drank together and did what young men do the world over.

The best mates I have ever known, and committed practical jokers. The butt of our pranks would invariably aimed at poor old Ray Parker. It was made all the funnier because we all knew what was going on and he could never work it out.

Some classic examples were; when we took all of his tools out of his tool bag, nailed it to a batten of wood with six inch nails and replaced all of his tools and fastened up the bag. Then we hid and when he tried to pick up his tool bag he couldn't understand why it wouldn't budge. When he heard us laughing he knew why and who were the perpetrators of the deed. He was livid and gave chase but we were gone. It wasn't a good idea to get too close to Ray for an hour or so!

Ray played rugby despite being in his forties and came in for some stick on a Monday morning, bruised, battered and regularly with a black eye.

Jack Ellis, another of the lads, used to go and watch Ray play and when the opposition's supporters called out, 'He's old enough to be your father', Jack would shout, 'Tackle him he's old enough to be your grandfather'. Just the sort of supporter you don't want on your side.

Another time we had a power cable plug blow one thousand yards up K10's tailgate. Tail gates were always roasting hot and dusty. We got on the phone to Ray and he said he would bring us a new one down. These things were heavy and we settled down to wait for him. A couple of the lads thought it a laugh to switch off our cap lamps and hide, and let him lug this cable plug to the coalface another five hundred yards further on.

When he came back, panting, dripping with sweat, and found us, we acted perplexed as to how he had missed us and made out it was his fault. He didn't know.

Of the other lads, they all had their little foibles. Brian was called Loll or Topper because he used to loll against anyone he was at the side of and Topper was because if you had two balls, he'd have had three.

When we were talking about how fast we had been on a bike, Topper sat up from whom he had been lolling on and said, 'None of you have been as fast as me on a bike'. He went on to explain that a car with forward facing door handles passed him and caught his trouser pocket in the door handle. The car went faster and faster with Topper alongside knocking on the car window trying to get the driver to stop. The driver thought that Topper wanted to pass and went faster yet, then his trousers finally ripped and he was saved. All a load of crap but of course that was vintage Topper.

He was a real card make no mistake and his escapades were legendary. Dagger Bag was a deputy at the pit and he was also a special constable. He was on point duty one day when along comes Brian the Topper. Playing the fool, he thinks it would be fun to drive close to Dagger for a laugh, only he was too close and drove over his foot. Dagger was off work for four months whilst the broken bones in his foot healed. Had Dagger reported him, Topper would have been in big trouble or as we would have said, ‘In deep shit".

The stories are endless; like the time he pulled up at a petrol pump and told the attendant how much he wanted. He went into the pay kiosk, paid for his fuel got into his car and drove off. A rumbling noise was coming from the back of his car; the petrol hose was still in his tank. He had pulled down the petrol pump. Petrol was everywhere, the Fire Brigade and police were called and Topper was let off with a caution. Trouble just followed him around like an old friend.

I was at work one day and came across Topper struggling with a big batten of timber, 'Give me a hand to throw this on the conveyor belt', said Topper.

As it went into the distance, I looked at him and he said, 'What' and I said, 'When that thing gets to the transfer point there will be the biggest pile up in history'. What it was all in aid of was that he had a feud with the transfer point operator and wanted to give him extra work to do clearing up the mess. I told him to stop the belt and get the batten of timber off the belt and not to be such a dork. But he wouldn't listen. Sure enough there was a big pile up and it fetched out a hundred yards of belt structure and stopped the production to that side of the pit for three days. How the batten came to be on the belt nobody could figure out.

But they didn't know Topper like we knew Topper.

Chapter 10. The Record Breakers

I had been the electrician working on a new drift from the Deep Soft coal seam to the Blackshale coal seam. This was intended to open up new reserves for Hucknall.

We were used to crawling on hands and knees wearing kneepads and gloves. Surprised and totally unprepared for the six feet of coal when the drift reached the seam. The planners had come good for a change, with a drift that was a mile long and a gradient of one in four, I certainly got fit walking up and down the hill.

It was the custom that the electrician who developed a coalface was electrician on that face. As I was the electrician in question and I had enjoyed a fair stint on outbye work, it was only fair that I took my share because I had developed K8s face I was electrician on that face, when production started.

The face was the star of the pit and was destined to be a high output face, or, as we would call it a ‘big hitter’. Records were set and broken again and again. The highest daily output, the highest weekly output and the most yardage cut in a shift. These were national records and hotly contested between the different coalfields.

Incidentally the records that we set were 8,500 tons in a day, 21,000 tons in a week and 2,000 yards cut in a shift all from K8's. The main cutter/loader was a rackatrack, panzer mounted, double ended ranging drum shearer. An impressive sounding name, for an impressive machine.

These records didn’t happen just by accident, a whole lot of preparation work was done. Then came the day and everyone at the pit knew that K8s face team were going for it. The smallest hitch could mar the attempt but we got it more often than not.

Glossary of Terms