Just found your terrific site. I was looking for alternative fuels for my Davey Safety Lamp. It’s a Patterson Lamp from Gateshead with the number 88 stamped on it. I have tried Meths which does light but as soon as I put the gauze cover on, the flame dies.

It's nice to read about some of your subscribers. I worked at the Brookhouse Mine, Beighton. The Orgreave Colliery and the Treeton Colliery is where I first did my training. I now live in Tasmania.

I know I am late with an answer re : over head buckets. I lived in Beighton from 1945 until 1966 and never once did I see evidence of over head buckets. In fact as I recall the Beighton Pit was used only for men going in and out of the mine. All the coal was lifted to the surface via the Brookhouse winder.

After the mine disaster in the 1950's when the cage in the Brookehouse shaft plummeted to the bottom of the shaft with 48 men on board they had to be carried on stretchers up a very steep and dusty incline to reach the Beighton pit shaft. This was a trek of about a mile. I know what it was like to walk that drift since I did it quite often when I was working there in the 1960's and I hated every step.

The coke ovens were on the right hand side of the road as you went up the hill towards Swallownest.
My brother painted a terrific painting of the Brookhouse and coke ovens with the smoke and fumes spewing forth.

Thanks
Vic Arthur

Brookhouse Colliery - 1958 'Overwind' incident.

Miner John Briggs

The accident at Brookhouse Colliery in Beighton in 1958 became known as the 'Overwind' incident. It happened when a new electrical winding system on the miners' shaft cage broke, causing it to fall. Miner William Wild said at the time: "It was sheer hell down there. The cage was a mass of bodies thrown against each other and the pit bottom was full of moans and groans."

There were no fatalities but miners involved said it would have been much worse had it not been for their colleagues, who carried the injured a mile to safety.

Lorraine Henery, daughter of miner Arthur Davison, said: "My father was in the cage when it crashed to the ground.

"He suffered leg injuries and had to have his leg amputated. I'm one of 11 children, so as you can imagine, the accident had a lifetime of consequences for my family."

Marilyn Stojak, daughter of miner Arnold Clarke, said: "My father ended up with a crushed pelvis and no hip joint on one side.

"He couldn't go back down the pit as he couldn't bend, so worked as a gateman for the National Coal Board for the rest of his life.