Pits Around Nottingham.

[Henry 0]

BTW, if there are any ex pit lads who read the posts, or anyone with any mining input, be it actual history, or anything to do with the mining industry, my chat forum is http://coalmine.proboards23.com/

John

Hello John

My father worked at gedling during the war and until about 1953 then he went to Bestwood Colliery where he was the Taining Officer. I worked there from 1955-8. There was a manager called George Gamble in the pit office.

I worked with a lad called Chris Jelf who's Dad also worked there. There was a Bob and a Brian but I forgot their last names.

I have lived in Canada and the States since 1965. I live in Calgary now and there used to be a lot of coal mining in Alberta.

I see you are in MO - I went out with a girl in Kirksville. I visited Cape Girardeau (home of that lunatic on the radio) which is close to your area.

Best wishes

Henry Plummer

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

Hello John

My father worked at gedling during the war and until about 1953 then he went to Bestwood Colliery where he was the Taining Officer. I worked there from 1955-8. There was a manager called George Gamble in the pit office.

I worked with a lad called Chris Jelf who's Dad also worked there. There was a Bob and a Brian but I forgot their last names.

I have lived in Canada and the States since 1965. I live in Calgary now and there used to be a lot of coal mining in Alberta.

I see you are in MO - I went out with a girl in Kirksville. I visited Cape Girardeau (home of that lunatic on the radio) which is close to your area.

Best wishes

Henry Plummer

Hi Henry, I'm a fair way over from the Cape, I'm in the Ozarks pretty close to the Arkansas state line.

Maybe someone who worked with you all those years back will find your posts here and contact you.

[rob237 89]

Henry,

I worked at No 6 Area HQ Bestwood offices from '57 to '64ish...

Vaguely remember the name George Gamble up at the colliery.

Do you recall Bill Mayes, who was the long-time colliery Chief Clerk?...his parents ran the Post Office on Moor Road.

Been racking my addled brain for the Bestwood Colliey Manager's name at that time, with no success!

We have another member - his name eludes me - who has recently been making Bestwood enquiries in the Forum.

Cheers

Robt P

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

Just for Mick, he wanted a Clifton Colliery photo so here's Clifton Colliery during the 60's!

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

Here's another from around 1947 of Clifton Colliery.

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

And another after closure. The date is wrong, it should read 1968, I was transferred around May of that year to Cotgrave. At that time only drawing off operations were in progress.

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

Bump, for Mick.

[plantfit 7,580]

By heck John,

Them pics bought back some memories of me cycling down that road to meet me dad from pit, it was Queens drive wont it?

Rog

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

By heck John,

Them pics bought back some memories of me cycling down that road to meet me dad from pit, it was Queens drive wont it?

Rog

I managed to get a fair few of the old pit Roger, I also have the abandonment plans too.

What did your Dad do there and his name, I might remember him.

[piggy and babs 544]

Hi AYUP

MY HUSBAND DAVE PIGGOTT [PIGGY] worked at clifton pit from 1963 to 65 check no 342 till he had to leave after being brought up pit and taken home with phewmonia sez he really missed it when he had to finish.

My father George Henry Clements AKA little wemmy check no 432 worked at gedling from 1920 to 1973 he always said hard work but great mates and would never do owt else. so pits were always part of my life remmember in schooll holidays going with him to collect his wages on friday goin in the canteen for dinnermy dad worked perminent nights running main belt for the last 25 yearsafter having a bad fall on pit top early one morning badly damaging his knee no compensation in them days,could no longer work the face so took the linemans job. All the men on his shift used to collect for him at hoidaytime and christmas as this was not a very well paid job and of course he did not get the boneses they got but of course they could not work if the main belt was not working and he very really had to have time off so they said this was his bonus.This paidfor part of our holidays in Mablethorpe ussually a caravan owned by a miner who was not useing it that year for one week.. and our christmas presents and food for the day all the extras we would not be able to have otherwise.

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

I don't recall your hubby, but it was a long time back. My check number was 360 at Clifton. My years there were 1964 to 68 when it closed.

Ask your hubby to contact me please, he could be of valuable assistance to me as I'm rebuilding my web site from ground up and there's some gaps, in fact loads of gaps in Clifton's history that I need filled, more so from years before I started there. the old material is still on the site if he'd like to take a read of it.

Coal, Collieries and Mining.

[plantfit 7,580]

Sorry John just re-read this thread and saw your request, my dads name was Roy Chaplin and he worked on the coal face up until closure he was also one of the last men there on what he called "drawing off"

Rog

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

I don't recall him Roger, Before I was transferred to Cotgrave, I came off nights back on to three shifts again. My last couple of months was anywhere, although I did spend time on 51's. The other two faces were 52's and 53's all in the Tupton, (Low Main) seam. Prior to that 51's seemed to be the face of choice I was sent to. Did my face training on that face too. During my time there I worked on 12's, farthest south west we could go, was pretty close to Ruddington. 41's bottom end of the pit, south east side out under Tollerton somewhere. Those two were our last Deep Hard seam faces. Then 43's in Piper, 51's, 52's and 53's. !0's fire was when I was doing my first year of "induction" by the time I got underground, 10's had finished and was being just about drawn off and 12's was working close to it's goaf.

[DJ360 6,721]

I joined the No 6 Area as an apprentice fitter in 1965. Went to Arnold and Carlton College and the Training Centre at Hucknall. Was assigned to Linby and did surface stints there but never got as far as working underground. Moved into the Coal Board Labs at Cinderhill instead.

Did a visit down Ormonde before I left school. Only other pit I went down was the Hucknall Training Pit and much more recently I went down Parsonage Colliery near Leigh in Lancs. Part of the Parsonage/Bickershaw Golborne complex. Bloody deep and bloody hot. Lifting roadways and buckling rings everywhere.

My Dad, Grandad, Great Grandad and Great, Great Grandad all lived in Bestwood Colliery and all worked in the pit from around the time it opened in the 1860s. Great Great Grandad Samuel is still firmly planted in St Marks Churchyard. Died 1898. Makes you think.

Grandad later had the Bestwood Hotel in Bestwood Colliery Village.

Dad later worked at Linby before retiring with 'the dust'.

Brother worked at Linby and various others as the pits dwindled and is now a painter and decorator.

Uncle, Harry Johns was some sort of manager at Linby. Another uncle Frank Radford was a rope splicer.

Last time I was 'home', the refurb job on the Bestwood Headstocks was looking great, but the Bestwood Hotel was looking very sad.

It's a funny thing. Back in the 50s and 60s, there was such a sense of life about the area. Collieries and steam railways everywhere. I lived very close to Bulwell Common Station. Now, although the whole area is much more built up and the roads especially are much busier, it's just not the same. It feels empty and dead.

Col

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

I did my first year, not quiet a year as I started my NCB apprenticeship six months late and had to catch up with the class, but started about March 64, did a week about, one at Portland Road College, week at training centre on Watnall Road. Same as you did my surface and underground training at top pit, plus all the advanced apprentice training courses at the Watnall Road training centre.

Top pit was unique, just the one shaft remaining, what used to be the upcast shaft, it still had the coal fired furnace that ventilated the old pit many years before we went there. It worked several seams in it's hay day, top hard, high hazels, main bright, deep soft, deep hard etc..

Not sure, but I think all our training was done in the top hard, not very far down in the Leen Valley pits.

[DJ360 6,721]

We were taken down the Hucknall training pit by a wiry cantankerous little old git. You may remember him! He used to say things like .Yer'll gerrabaff fter bein' dahn 'ere else ahl giyya a toe cap an' six lace 'oles up yer arse! He had a way with words...

One of the lads in our group was from Hucknall Watnall area and was called Fowler, or maybe Fowles. When the old git asked if any of us had relatives in the mines most of us had. This lad said his Dad had died in a roof fall. The old git asked him where. "Here". Said the lad.

The old git took us to a place where there was a clearly bricked up gate. Your "Dad's in there lad", he said. That was a strange moment.

The centre manager at the time was a Mr Shaw. I hated him and I thought he felt the same about me, but he was sharp enough to notice I wasn't happy there. When I told him I really wanted to be a scientist, he arranged for me to go to the Labs at Cinderhill for an interview and I got the job.

Col

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

I recall Shaw, but not the instructor you mentioned. There was one who took us for U/G training, tall bloke, there was this pony, probably there when you did your training, nasty piece of work that pony, more like a bloody dray horse than a pit pony. We were on pony haulage for a couple of days, and this feller went through the gear, these are limmers, this is a collar etc etc.. He made us put the tackle on the hoss, but the bloody hoss kept turning round and trying to bite us. In the end he said "gerraht way, I'll bloody do it" Yeah right, the hoss turned round grabbed a mouthful of his left elbow, he let out such a scream and then obscenities, we were rolling on the floor laughing our heads off. The instructor didn't see the funny side, his elbow was about the size of a football and the best shades of black and blue I've ever seen in my life! Needless to say he wasn't a happy camper all shift!

[DJ360 6,721]

. It's that sort of 'gallows' humour that I remember. The miners, like a lot of other traditional industrial groups, would rip the p1$$ out of you without mercy, but if you really needed help, they'd be there.

[Limey 242]

DJ - that reminds me of an event that happened to me in a coal mine in Utah. We were installing dust measuring equipment on a continuous miner - so we were working the night, maintenance shift. About 2:00am there was a huge "whump", then silence and we realized the ventilation had stopped. The shift forman tried to call out to the pit top (it was a drift mine), but the phone lines were out. We took a quick inventory to make sure everybody was accounted for, then sat down, ate our "snap" and discussed what our wives would do with the insurance money!

I don't think that for one moment any of us were really "scared" - but we certainly were worried. Eventually we decided to make our way slowly out - and did so safely. Turns out there had been a "bounce" in a section outbye of where we were working. A bounce is when the pillars in a room-and-pillar system suddenly and instantly collapse. The rush of air blew out air doors and short-circuited the ventilation!

One of the miners there, a few months later, was one of the rescue crew that tried to get 27 miners out of the Wilburg Mine in Emery, Utah!

Brave, and wonderful people. I loved working with them, but I'm glad I don't do it anymore!

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

When I was in Australia, I much preferred to hear the sound of the sandstone floor and roof go with a loud thump, good sign everythings relieving the pressures. Slow convergence is scary!! I was helping the crew of the district I was an electrician in, we'd had a lot of heavy noises all shift, about half way through, it was decided to pull the miner out to safety and park the two shuttlecars up, set breakers and props and wait around until our relief Deputy arrived to make a decision as what to do.

At the intersection I was giving them a hand to set props, about 8 feet high. One of the miners shouted "who the hell is measuring these props"???? The props were too long!! Yeah right, we were under a fast lowering roof, convergence, one of the older blokes shouted, "abandon ship" we all took off as fast as we could up the belt road, stopped at the boot end and looked back, "BOOM" the roof gave way and we had a massive fall.

Just shows how lucky we were sometimes, or was it just good training??

[mick2me 3,033]

Is there still a Mines Rescue Unit still out Mansfield way?

[Ashley 288]

off topic (sorry) but tale of instructor and pony reminds me of when 5 gallon open top drum of thinners caught fire in a press shop,(lit fag dropped in it!) whilst we stood around looking one old guy (reminded me of percy sugden) adopted this same "out of the way I'll sort it" attitude and picked up the blazing tub intending to carry it outdoors, course it got hot! and what do you do with something burning your fingers ? WHOOSH! like naplam, blokes jumping out windows, johnny frantically pulling on a chain to raise shutter door, laugh about it now but building (an old stable) burnt down and lucky no one killed

[littlebro 234]

Is there still a Mines Rescue Unit still out Mansfield way?

Yes Mick, still there on Leeming Lane.

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

I can't recall who or what topic the tunnel from Clifton Colliery to the south was posted by or what topic.

BUT, here's a snippet of information I just found, during shaft sinking of no1 shaft, at 499ft a heading was driven 176 yards long, that would take it under Wilford!, water was struck at 95 yards together with the main fault at a strike of 95 yards. That fault is by and large one of the largest in Nottingham.

So there was a tunnel driven south from Clifton Colliery under the Trent, but not for a railway, just an exploratory tunnel to find "the lay of the land" so to speak.

[Cliff Ton 10,458]

That was this one http://nottstalgia.c...wtopic=9804&hl=

You've backed up what was said earlier......that it might've been a "service" tunnel but wasn't a "normal" tunnel