Ayupmeducks

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Posts posted by Ayupmeducks

  1. 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 below the surface. I've walked that many an afternoon shift when the Cable belt was stood!

  2. 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 moved next door into the old BICC wharehouse, our stores was ground floor, next floor up was the offices and above that was Nottm Transformer. I think we left Ranby and Keys Rewinds where they were, can't remember. They were only a small outfit anyway.

  3. Yes I remember Ranbys cafe.

    Also in the square where Ranbys electrical was, was a Carribean club. The name escapes me. It was run by a Jamaican Cricketer?

    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 was entertaining a client leaning on the van!

    The square was notorious for prostitutes plying their trade at night..

    Still, that was the Lace Market those days....

  4. 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???

  5. I've got a mate in the Crane Hire Biz.

    In the 80's he would be at the Pits for hours and days, just waiting in case they needed  him - No expence spared!

    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 mining machine, electrical manufacturing base wrecked too.

    Shirebrook was a profitable Derbyshire pit until the NCB "bean counters" were allowed to kill it, like so many others, Big "K", Cotgrave, Calverton, etc, etc..

    We at Clifton were told the coal we were producing was crap, yeh, thats all we had available until the drifts were sunk down to the next seam, BUT, they wanted men at Cotgrave, so we had to provide the labour there.

    The NCB had spent thousands on the new approach area for those drifts!! There was plans to drive a drift from the coal prep plant to meet up with the inbye bunker at 1's number 4 junction too!! All passed! That would have rid us of the bottleneck, the old narrow shafts which couldn't have been widened due to geological problems.

    Alas, it's all history now, like coal itself, history...

  6. 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 use when I started my career underground.

  7. 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 we'd need a semi to move all our stuff!

    It's never ending mate...BUT I'd never move back to Nottingham if you offered me a huge house in a patrolled gated community! Plus a million quid!

    I escaped when Maggie grabbed power!

  8. 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.

  9. I know its nothing to do with Nottingham,but there is a very interesting paper youm should read.

    Ozark Aquifer

    Created by:

    Scott M. Smith

    Unreviewed Site

    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.

  10. 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.

  11. 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 fact several cities are fighting class action law suits to reverse the law!

    Several local small cities around where I live absolutely refuse to fluoridate their water in contravention of the law.. Seems the governments don't want negative publicity, so have left them to go it alone.

    The more I read about things like fluoride, the more I worry.

  12. 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 US EPA's concerns would have sent an alarm bell ringing in your head too!

    I haven't located the site of professional government employees as of yet, but as soon as I do, I'll post their URL.