Ayupmeducks

Impossible Mick, you see when a pit closes and pumps are withdrawn, the mine starts filling with water. Eventually the water fills right up to the shaft concrete caps, then over the years the water deterierates the strata. What we call sterilizing the seams. There is a website, I think it's part of the coal authorities, that show the water tables of Nottingham in association with the closed collieries. Clifton and Cotgrave are linked by water now, probably breached through the old workings, which got as far as around four hundred yards on the deep hard seam. Of course Radford and Wollaton

The Sherwood Sandstone, which used to be called the Bunter, is found all over Notts into Derby's and Lincs Mick. No doubt there are coal seams under Attenborough, whether some have been worked I don't know. Some seams are too close to the Sherwood Sandstone, and as you get to the south west, about the top end of Clifton Estate, the Deep hard seam gets pretty close and is unworkable any further westwards. Pity really, as it gets pretty thick that way! Over 5ft 6ins of recoverable coal. That was about the farthest limits of Clifton Colliery. There is a line drawn on the maps I have of exac

Well, what me late Mam told me, we started out dahn Lenton, too close to the canal when I was toddling, so we moved to St Anns, spent up to my 14th year there then we moved dahn medders. Thats where we stayed until we were moved under demolition orders. Me and my first missus took the two kids up to Clifton, Farnborough Road opposite the Comp school. In fact, we were lucky, we had a bus stop right out front gate!

She probably got married and moved on Lyn... Be nice to find out what happened to her and how her family are, I'd presume her Mum would be long gone now, but she had a Sister and Brother..

I went out with a girl who worked at the NAAFI offices in Bottle Lane Lyn. Her name was Linda Kay, way back in 1966, she lived up Bestwood.

I knew he was a gambler Roger, he even took a gamble sinking the pit that far south too! He sunk the pit and worked outwards only to find the area was heavily faulted and he'd sunk the pit in what is known as a "bastard seam" ie, everywhere he went he hit sandstone. His family had to borrow I believe 6 million pounds from a London Bank to drive the Stone Head Drift and South Main Returns through the Bunta Sandstones to reach the Deep Soft seam. After that all was plain sailing. BTW, the Stone Head drift was 3/4 mile long and ranged between 1:4 and 1:6 from pit bottom to over 2000 feet belo

I wasn't sure Katy, then that building was Ranby's old place where your hubby came up and through. I didn't know the staircase was open all the way down, when Ranby's were in there, myself and another apprentice started to go down the stairs, didn't have a torch or anything, and we could only get so far due to all the windows being bricked up. It was just dark and too dangerous to venture further. Ranby's used to be on the ground floor, Ranby and Keys the next on down and Nottm Transformer the next one down still. If i recall there was a ladies fashion factory above us... Long time ago. We m

Must have been way after my time there Mick, I worked for Ranby's from1962 to 1964, Thats when I secured an apprenticeship with the NCB. One of the electricians who worked there used to take his girlfriends to the square at night of a weekend because it was so quiet. He had one of those little Bedford vans with sliding side doors. He gave us a laugh one Monday morning, he'd been in the square the night before doing..well you get the picture, and the van was rocking with extra momentum!! He stopped what he was doing but the van carried on rocking! He looked out the window and a prostitute w

My boss at the time, Geoff Ranby's wife ran a little busy cafe just around the corner. Nancy I think her name was. We also had Jeff Key's rewinds in the same building, real name of them was Ranby and Key's. They bought into a transformer design and winding company while I worked for them too, Nottm Transformers.

Katy, I think JS Hall was in the same building as the company I first started working for, GT RANBY. We were in the old BICC premises and had the top few floors coming out in a square, name elludes me now, but opposite St Mary's Church on High Pavement. There were no other tennants in the building all the way down from us. The whole building was built into the "living rock" Was it Commerce Square???

I left in early 1975 to start a new job at a brand new mine in North Yorks. We had a council house promised us at Skinningrove, right at side of the beach!

Roger, where did your Dad go to after Wollaton?? I served my apprenticeship at Clifton and we had a fair few blokes from Wollaton come to work with us. John.

Thats when the backroom boys were working on ways to make pits look uneconomic Mick. A mate of mine, who was a Deputy at Shriebrook told me of how management were just throwing money away on overtime etc towards the end to make the books look bad. During the 50's,60's and possibly 70's each pit had an annual budget which when expended was it, only justifiable overtime was allowed. We apprentices were the first to have overtime cuts near the end of the financial year. Things seem to have altered under Maggies plan to rid the country of a viable coal industry, not to mention a very profitable

Rob, was just going through the old posts. The blatent waste ceased when the NCB set up the National Plant Scheme or whatever it was called. A pit essentially rented it's equipment from area, they would be charged daily for it, hence the reason Managers went through the roof when faces broke down or the trunk belts were standing. When a face finished, we were pretty quick to recover the face equipment and return it to area. There was a time, before I started in the early 60's when the Colliery Manager ordered his own equipment from the manufacturer, some of that equipment was still in u

Paddy, I left the UK in 79 with a very large suitecase and a shoulder bag for the sunny climes of Tasmania. I bought me a large station waggon and moved north chasing the sun to NSW. In just a few months in Tassie, my suitecase had swollen! I settled in Wollongong, and of course my packrat instincts swelled my possesions to a large truck load, which I drove over " the hill" to Bathurst in NSW. I married a couple of years later and we decided renting was "for the birds" and bought a house. Jeeze!! where did all those things come from?? Now I live in the country, down in southern Missouri and

That mess reminds me of the junction of 51's maingate and 52's maingate when I was about 20 years of age at Clifton Colliery. It looked a lot tidier after I'd rewired it all..

That looks like the back of my ham radios and they have the cheek to call it WIRELESS...

Isn't safety equipment mandatory in the UK??? Over here they would be required to wear all the above plus steel toe safety boots too! My latter days in the NSW coal industry I was required by law to wear hearing protection and safety glasses as well as a dust mask. Thats on top of the hard hat, safety boots, suitable clothing, cap lamp and self rescuer.

Note the lack of safety equipment!! No hard hats, no safety glasses, and no hearing protection!!

Interesting paper Stan, just read it on line, thanks for the info. I didn't realize how big the aquifier was. I know there is lead mining to the north west in the Joplin area causing surface water pollution, mainly a couple of rivers which have come to the attention of the EPA.

Take his beer away from him Stan... My wells a six inch bore, it goes through 60 feet of clay, that section is lined with a steel pipe, then there is 490 feet going through the Ozark limestone beds. I can use the nearest towns annual water analysis of their well water as a guide to what mine contains. They are obliged by law to have a full test of their water an to publish it annually Stan, right down to the last .008% of whatever. I know mine is loaded with limestone!! Very hard indeed.

Many dentists are totally against Fluoride now Stan, some that have dared speak out have been struck off. Now why would they get struck off for voicing their opinions?? But to protect the cash cow! To me, fluoride is a by product chemical agent of a manufacturing process, chemical agents are not healthy. I'm lucky, in that my water comes from my own well, but if I lived in a city where I had the crap rammed down my throat, then I'd go the bottled water route. The reason lots of north American Cities fluoridate their water is because the law requires them to Stan. It's not volutary, in fa

Seems if "you have enough paid up members of the club" you can invent as much "credible evidence" as you want, and sell it to the gullible people Stan. Check to see what the fluoride industry pay the dental associations every year in grants, is it no wonder it's a sacred cow?? I gave some very credible links on my posts, there is also the Canadian Dental Association who also have serious concerns about the use of Fluoride, a toxic by product of the atomic and aluminum industries, who used to have to get government permission to dispose of of this very dangerous product. I'd have thought the

Read this UK site!! UK site

Here's the US governments own assesments of risks and benefits. Sorry, if the risk is cancer, then I'd sooner lose all my teeth!! USA Report on fluoride.