Dear sir,
I worked at Hucknall No 2 colliery up until it closed in 1986, and worked on both k32s and k33s both of which had sandstone intrusions at some time or another on them, the management at a very high level(London) knew that these two faces would thin out and run into trouble the further we went on that side of the workings, infact they used to phone every day from London(Hobart House) to see what problems we were encountering, obviously they didn't want miners killed for there decision to open that side of the workings up, old miners told us young lads that they were the worst conditions they had ever seen or worked in, the dust from the double headed sheerer when going through the sandstone was unbelievable, and so was the extreme heat, but we endured it, because some of us knew they were trying to close the colliery, and the effects on the wider community would be catastrophic, why else would they deliberately take two out of three working faces into the bad working side of the pit. On the North East, and East sides of the mine there were plenty of mineable reserves, in fact I was working a heading when the closure decision was taken, that was 8 foot thick with coal, and we had the first 4 face supports on, we could have gone to Skeggy with that one. The older guys were bribed with redundancy payments to close the mine in a ballot, my point is that a political decision at the very top, closed Hucknall colliery not the geology or the miners themselves, Hucknall was the first casualty of the Tory closure programme after the miners strike of 84-85. With Thatcher signing the European Emissions deal and her party's hatred of the miners, there fate was sealed.
Keep ya powder dry serry.
I must explain about keeping your powder dry though, when I first started at Hucknall in 1976 there were a lot of old miners 65 years old still working underground, some still on face work, the experience they passed onto us as trainees was invaluable, when changing shifts we would very often meet the afternoon shift or night shift underground at some point, some of the older guys had the saying , meant as a greeting as well, ''allright serry, keep yer powder dry''wich could either mean keep your snuff tin dry, or your explosives bag, which were in a locked leather barrel bag, in the past the explosives would have been gunpowder, to get this wet would mean a fine or the sack, and the very least loss of wages if you didn't have enough powder to blow the workings down to advance the face, on the down side, it could mean having to re bore your holes adjacent to the ones you already have packed with powder and detonators which wasn't a task for the faint hearted, a drill bit in the new hole hitting a detonator in the previous one could result in fatalities, it was common to see old miners with powder burns ingrained in there faces as black powder marks because of shot firing accidents.
Anyway I could write a book on the subject, but must get some work done.
See 'When I started at Hucknall in 1976 I was told I had a job for life'
Ian Morrison
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