Wilfred Watkins, Miner
Last month I posted my grandfather's reminiscences about World War I: see http://doubtingmichael.livejournal.com/15079.html. Here's the rest of that interview, about his life down the mines.
Thanks again to history_monk for assistance getting this material ready, and of course to my parents (WINOLJ) for doing the original interview and transcription.
I was 13 when I left school and my brother took me down to the manager's office to ask if I could be employed as his helper. The manager agreed and I signed and I went home. My mother bought me a pair of moleskin trousers - they were all the rage then, you know, it was quite a big thing to have moleskin trousers. Father repaired a pair of shoes for me, put hob-nails in them. The following morning my brother, Tom, took me down to the pit and showed me where to get my lamp from the lamp-room - an oil-lamp - and took me into the cage. I'd never been down before and when we were going down I felt that we were coming up, and I thought to myself, "Well, this is pretty deep". We got out of the cage and started walking towards the working places and the lamp I was holding in my hand was nearly dragging on the floor, I was so small.
We got to the coal-face - my brother was a collier - and the most I was doing at first was holding the light for him and his mate to work. At food time I opened my tommy-box to start eating and I saw my brother and his mate were wet with sweat. I thought to myself, "Well, I'd like to be like them." So I got hold of my jack of water and poured some over my trousers. They both laughed. We always took bread and butter and cheese to eat and always cold water in the jack.
I didn't find the place frightening at all; fascinating, rather, there was so much to see. I was quite enjoying myself; it was a new thing. I used to like to look at the horses in those days before there was much mechanisation. We were mostly very fond of them but some of the hauliers could be very cruel in those early days, over-working them and beating them too. There was one they called Dai Blank, he was wicked to his horses - I've seen him pick up a sprag out of a wheel and beat his horse about the head. Quite a few of the men used to get a bit angry about it sometimes, believe me, but the other hauliers didn't seem to mind so much. I've seen horses kicked and everything and there was no need for it; they worked hard, the old horses did, they worked really hard, pulling their tons of coal and they were willing to do it, too.
The day shift then lasted for about eight hours, and in those days there were no pithead baths, so when we got home, my mother got out the bath and the hot water and my brother had a bath first and then I had one. That didn't carry on for long because as soon as I'd come home I'd be out playing football and didn't come home until seven to have my bath. My mother used to get very annoyed about that. But I didn't mind! I was enjoying myself, and through that I got the nick-name of Rigger. I was known by that name for quite a long time.
A couple of days after I'd started work, I started shovelling. I couldn't use a pick or a drill so I was shovelling coal into the trucks. We weren't supposed to use a shovel, mind, we were supposed to use a curling-box. If we'd been caught using a shovel we'd have been warned and perhaps sent out.
There was a good spirit down there between the men and the firemen, a good relationship. There would be arguments at times, of course, over the yardage or tonnage. We were on night-work once and when we'd finished the shift my brother had marked his trams and he was accused of marking another man's trams with his number. He was prosecuted and had a month's imprisonment! But I know he couldn't have done it - he'd never have done such a thing. Someone else with a spite against him must have done it. After that I was moved to another district; it wasn't quite so hot there and the fellows were quite nice to work with, you see.
[This is where the World War I material came originally.]
When I came back home again there wasn't any fuss or much of a welcome. Well, from my own family there was, of course, but everybody was used to seeing soldiers coming back by then; it was the first few who got all the flags and everything. It was a bit of a let-down after the first day or so because I had to go back down the mine; I soon realised that it would have been a better life if I'd stayed, much better.
For a while after the war we were on quite good wages, but later they dropped us right down to a very low level, very poor wages they were in the slump. Then the strikes started!
There was one strike in 1921, pretty general in this area. Trying to get better wages we were, but we were no better off in the end. Men used to go up to the Barry Tip to dig for waste coal; some of them used to sell it - it was anything to earn a few coppers. There was no strike pay then, just a soup kitchen run by volunteers in Bethania Chapel. You could have a bowl of soup and a piece of bread, children as well. There were a few barefoot children to be seen but mostly they were clad - that was only done with a struggle, though.
There was a lot of ill-feeling about in these strikes, towards the coal-owners, especially. There they were, making a very nice living while we were practically starving. Then there were the scabs; people hated the scabs. Only a handful of them went to work, mind, and when they walked along Fox Street to the pit they couldn't be touched because they had police escorts. So we all used to put on our black ties and take off our caps and stand each side of the road, quite silent, as if there was a funeral. All completely silent and the scabs looked quite sheepish. Little chaps they were, mostly, and great big policemen.
I remember standing in Fox Street and seeing Fred Thomas, such a short little chap, and four big policemen escorting him. He was my friend in the Army, too, but he was a scab in this strike - he had a son and I think he was thinking of this son more than anything. But in the next strike he'd changed round completely; in fact, he was one of those who stayed down in the stay-down strike.
Mind, everybody was so desperate, there was no room for anybody to feel any sympathy at all for the scabs. Phil Davies's father was one scab, I remember; he woke up one morning and found his doors, windows, everything tarred and feathered and "Scab" written across his house wall in tar.
On the whole, though, we were very orderly here. They sent a policeman down from Merthyr once; we were standing on the Square, picketing, and he was trying to move us on. Our local sergeant, Sergeant Lett, went up and said to him, "Now, don't you interfere with these chaps - they're quiet and orderly and they're doing no harm. While they're just watching, they're doing no harm." Lett was quite popular hereabouts because he would rather hit a man than run him in. I suppose these days a policeman would get into trouble himself, but in those days the men would rather be hit than arrested. I saw two big men, once, fighting in the fair; Sergeant Lett went up, caught hold of them and banged both their heads together.
Anyway, that strike finished and we went back to work no better off for all our picketing. People who were on light employment because they'd been injured weren't expected to come out in the strikes, of course, and pickets never interfered with them.
There was a worse strike in 1934, I think it was; we all came out around here: Treharris, Taff Merthyr, everywhere, and there was a stay-down strike. It was worst in Taff Merthyr - they turned hoses on the men down underground and there were riots.
There was a very good spirit among the men, then, but the wives were a bit down-hearted with so little money coming in, a little bit of strike pay later on and that was all. Quite a few of the shops gave credit, that was the only way they could keep going. Then when they did start back to work, there were a lot of debts to pay off and quite a few of them didn't pay them off at all. Oh, it was an experience, I can tell you, quite an experience.
The boredom used to get bad when the strike had been going on for a time. Men used to play cards for matchsticks, they were so bored. Later on, when they were all back at work, there were a lot of them who kept on with real gambling - that was illegal, of course. You'd see a circle of men, a card school, playing up on the mountain or somewhere, and a couple of boys watching out for the police. They used to get chased! I was playing a game once, down behind the back gardens of one of the streets, and a cry went up that the police were coming and sure enough, they were! We all jumped over the walls, down the back gardens, through whatever house we came to, out through the front doors and into the houses opposite. The policemen came and said, "Well, they're like a lot of bloody rats going into their holes!" Oh, I've had a bit of fun in my time!
What was my normal routine for the day, now? Let's see, I'd get up at about half past five. My wife would be up before me, getting my breakfast, then she'd fill my tommy-box, but I'd take an empty jack with me. I'd go down to the pit-head baths and change out of my clean clothes on the clean side and leave them in my locker, then cross over to the other side and change into my dirty clothes; I'd leave them there all the week. When I was ready, I'd fill my jack at the tap in the baths so that I'd have a jack full of fresh water. I'd go to the lamp room and draw my lamp; we always used the same one, of course. I had a check with the number of my particular lamp on and when I drew my lamp out I'd put the check in the slot. Then we'd go and wait by the top of the shaft and have a smoke; when the cage came, we'd go down a few at a time. We weren't allowed to take matches or cigarettes down with us, of course. I never took matches down, but sometimes I'd hide my matches until I came back up. We'd get into the cage and the banksman would knock to the engine room for the signal to lower us. The cage was a double- decker with 16 in each deck. We'd be down in a couple of minutes, then we'd have to walk to our work-places. Some of the places were further away than others; I usually walked about a mile or a mile and a half - we were all right as long as we were down by seven. Then we'd meet the fireman; he'd try our lamp and detail us for the work we had to do: different jobs every day. I was on contract packing, filling in with waste where the coal had been cut away. It was very hard work, especially being on contract - that's like piece-work, the more you do, the more you earn. There was a bit of frauding going on among a few men, mind, they'd fill the front of the space in well and leave great gaps behind. It wasn't what you could call safe, doing that, but I suppose no great danger as we were always moving on from where we'd packed. It really was hard work; during that time I developed a duodenal ulcer.
Anyway, we'd be working all day; by this time, I think we'd be working an eight hour day shift with half an hour off to have our food. Well, it was supposed to be twenty minutes, that was what we were allowed, but it was half an hour by the time we'd finished. No morning or afternoon tea breaks or anything like that!
We'd finish at about half past one, walk, and wait in a queue on bottom pit for the cage. We didn't get out at ground level; we used to go right up above the shaft, get out just below the winding gear, then walk down the steps.
Then we'd put our lamps back and take out our checks. The men in the lamp-room would be recharging batteries for the electric lamps and refilling the oil-lamps. One lamp in every so many had to be oil because they showed you where there was gas. If there was gas in a place and you held your lamp up it would go quite blue and fade down quietly and go out in the end. You came across gas quite frequently; I've very often been in a place where there was gas. If it was pretty bad they'd get a hose and blow air from a blast tube at it, blow it away into the old workings and so on - it always came back, of course.
The Union, then, wasn't very strong - well, it was strong in numbers but not powerful against the owners; the owners were adamant. They were mean about compensation, too; if they could get out of paying it, they did.
When I lost my eye, for example, I was working in Taff Merthyr, on the coal face. The fireman came round and said there was gas up in the rib so he had to put up a bit of brattice cloth, a sort of tarred canvas. He said to me, "Hold that side up for me, Will, while I put a nail in this side. Well, while you're there, you might as well knock a nail in that side." I said "I haven't got a hammer or anything to knock it in with." He said, "Well, get a stone to knock it in, it'll go in easy enough there." So I picked up a piece of stone and started hitting the nail and a splinter flew off the stone, straight into my eye - I saw a great big flash in front of me. As it happened, my eye swelled straight up and closed; the doctor in Cardiff told me later it was the luckiest thing out it swelled up like that, otherwise my eye would have run right out because it was pierced, the scar led into the cornea. I wasn't unconscious and it was agony; they took me straight down to the eye specialist. Anyway, I got over that. Well, I say I got over it, but I lost the sight of that eye completely; if I shut my left eye I can't see at all through my right one. No, there was no question of compensation, they sent me to another eye specialist in Swansea. When he examined me he said, "Oh, a bit of eye ointment will meet the case," and that was that. I had the normal weekly compensation, mind, while I was out, but nothing afterwards.
During the last strike, of course, having only one good eye, I could have worked because from that accident on, I was on light employment. But I asked the Federation if it would be advisable for me to go in and they said, "Well, nobody can see you've only got one eye; you'd better not go in or you might be attacked." So I thought to myself, "Well, I wouldn't like to be thought to be one of those scabs, anyway." So I stayed out.
There were lots of activities going on then, mind; the Jazz Bands started, for one. They weren't proper bands, of course, only gazoots and drums, but they were a big thing in the valleys then. I remember one band used to be the Zulus, all blacked up, and there was one old chap from Nelson; he used to dress up as a convict and he was great, chains and everything. They used to march in processions and have competitions, tableaux, marching and counter- marching and everything. They didn't have much money to spare for costumes but they used to manage somehow, they'd make them out of nothing.
I've been working with a man and he's perhaps been working on a staging, near the roof, preparing it for a supporting arch and he's just fallen off it, straight down to the floor, gassed. He'd recover all right, you see, the gas was usually near the roof, not down on the floor. Canaries are not used at normal times to test for gas, only when there's been an explosion, then they always went first. They kept canaries in the manager's office for years, but I don't think they've had them there for some time now.
I've seen a great many accidents and falls underground, quite a lot of men injured and one or two killed. Horses, too. I remember one horse pulling a tram along and he stopped all at once - they had a very sharp sense of danger - and although the haulier tried to drive him on, he wouldn't move. But he'd gone just a bit too far and all at once the roof came down on him, on his neck mostly. He had his collar on and this stone and all the rubbish that came down pressed his collar into his throat and we just couldn't loosen it. He died just like that, choked to death, and all the time his eyes were looking, looking at us as if he was trying to tell us. We were all upset to see him go like that, but all we could do was to put him in a tram and have him taken away.
My bad accident happened 16 years ago now. I'd had that duodenal ulcer and ended up with quite a serious operation in Cardiff - most of my stomach was cut away. Well, I'd been out for two years through that and I was still unfit for heavy work, but I thought, "Well, I don't feel too bad, now, I'll see if I can get some work again." So I saw the under-manager and he said I could have a job on the night shift; I went down the same night and went to work with a roof repairer. Well, that night went off all right; the next night we had to walk over a lot of rubble because the day-shift men had been ripping out the roof to make it high enough for the rings. As I was walking over it, a loose stone fell from the roof and hit me on the back, so after two days at work I had to have a couple of days off.
When I got back I had a job on the tumbler. Now, they'd bring a journey of trams up, full of rubbish, and we'd tip them on to a conveyor. It would go on a belt back to the face and the packers would use it. It was my habit to go up to this tumbler before the others, to oil it and to check everything was ready. On this particular night, when I was walking up, I came to the spot where a roof repairer had been working through the day. I happened to look up and I could see an awful mess up above me, a boulder and a lot of rubbish, just hanging by about an inch or two, on the edge of the ring. I thought "Well I'd better make a dive under this lot," and I did. I went up to the tumbler and I should think about ten of the boys must have passed by and said to me, "Did you see that lot back there, Will?" "I saw it," I said. "Looking bad, isn't it?" "Yes", I said, "it is looking bad, and I'm reporting it to the fireman now."
The fireman came up, and I said to him, "Did you see that lot back there, hanging over that ring?" "Yes", he said, "it is a bit rough there; I'll see about it." Now, I had to take the empty journey of trams down and bring full ones up. The empty ones started off down a slope and they ran all right down that, but it levelled off and the ground there was a swamp; they would stick there and they'd become unhitched. That's what happened that night and I was ages trying to connect them; I did connect them at last, though, and knocked a signal to the driver. Well, he started them up and they left the rails again. They had to choose to leave them right underneath this most dangerous place. I was trying to get them back again when the fireman came down in the deuce of a temper. "What the hell are you doing here?" he said, "All this time and we're still waiting for rubbish." "It's not my fault," I said, "I've been trying to get this back." "Well, come on," he said, "and we'll get it up together. You go on that side and I'll go here." We put a scotch - a piece of wood - to lead the wheels up on to the rail, and gave the engine driver the signal to pull up slowly. I don't know whether it was the vibration that disturbed the roof or what, but as I was bending to put this scotch right, the whole lot fell on top of me. Well, well! I thought it was all over. I tried to tell them to take messages for me, tell them I love them and all that. I really thought I'd had it, you see. I was absolutely trapped and it was very, very narrow there. They all rushed up to me and sent for the ambulanceman to come down, but when they got it all off me there wasn't room for them to carry me, they had to drag me along the floor. My foot had been hit by a stone but the main one caught me on the shoulder and took it out of its socket, nearly down to the elbow, and shattered the nerve. The ambulanceman came down and gave me an injection - morphia. I don't think it helped very much, though, I could feel it right through. They got me clear of this narrow place and took me on a stretcher to Bottom Pit. I could hear quite a few remarks being made that they thought I couldn't hear - "He'll never last through this," and so on, even the ambulanceman. When they got me up, he cleaned it up as best he could and the doctor came, but he said, "Oh, take him to Merthyr straight away, I can do nothing for him here."
They took me of course, and I was put under chloroform that same night and it was all pushed back in; it was all bandaged together when I woke up. The next day the specialist came and he said, "Who's made all this mess of it? Take it all off and get some plaster on it."
Later, I had to go to Cardiff and I had a frame made, holding my arm out in front of me at shoulder level. I hated that, holding it up all the time and, of course, my leg was in plaster from the knee down. Mind, it was very nice in the hospital - they let me go home in an ambulance every weekend and brought me back on the Monday. I was there for six months and when I'd been out for three weeks I had to go back with a dose of pleurisy. When I'd been there a fortnight they found a spot on my lung - TB now, if you please, so that meant 21 weeks in the Isolation Hospital. I was getting quite used to hospital!
The Union Secretary came to see me on one of my weekends at home, listened to all the details and said, "Oh, I think we've got a case here, we'll fight this." Then I had to tell it all over again to the solicitor, then he talked to about ten witnesses and he said we had a good case; they all said that roof had been left in a dangerous state. Then I had to talk to the Inspector of Mines and he had to go and have a look at the place where the accident happened, but of course, it had all been smoothed away by then. They tell me they had a report from the fireman afterwards and according to him, everything had been perfect; I don't know how it was supposed to have happened. Luckily, there were plenty of witnesses who'd seen the whole thing, including two men who'd been working with me that day; they were going to come with me as witnesses if the case had come to court. It all dragged on for about two years, then I had to go to see the solicitor and he told me the Coal Board had offered me £2,700. "Are you satisfied with that?" he asked me. Well, I wasn't altogether satisfied but he pointed out to me that I only had about nine years' working span left and that was the first thing the Judge would take into consideration. "So my advice to you," he said, "is to take this offer."
Well, I knew that if I went to court I might have more but I could have less. So I thought, "Well, I'd better take this now, it's not too bad." And it's been very useful indeed, I must say. Then I've got an extra pension, of course, they call me disabled for life, for the loss of my main limb - the arm is a total loss, of course, but that counts as 70% of total disability.
It's a lot better than if it had happened in the '20s or '30s, anyway; I wouldn't have anything, oh no indeed, it would have been the same as when I lost my eye. Nothing.
[There's one more note about my grandfather, that he couldn't know himself. As well as his obvious disabilities, he also suffered from a classic mineworker's bad chest. If it had been proved to be silicosis, the miner's disease brought on by coal dust in the lungs, he would have been due to receive government-specified compensation. But whenever he went for a check-up, the Coal Board doctor declared that he didn't have silicosis. When he died, an autopsy confirmed what the other doctors had always said: he'd been a sufferer for many years. Of course, since he was predeceased by his wife, there was now no legal requirement for the Board to pay anything to anyone, so the matter was settled, to the Coal Board's convenience.]
Thanks again to history_monk for assistance getting this material ready, and of course to my parents (WINOLJ) for doing the original interview and transcription.
I was 13 when I left school and my brother took me down to the manager's office to ask if I could be employed as his helper. The manager agreed and I signed and I went home. My mother bought me a pair of moleskin trousers - they were all the rage then, you know, it was quite a big thing to have moleskin trousers. Father repaired a pair of shoes for me, put hob-nails in them. The following morning my brother, Tom, took me down to the pit and showed me where to get my lamp from the lamp-room - an oil-lamp - and took me into the cage. I'd never been down before and when we were going down I felt that we were coming up, and I thought to myself, "Well, this is pretty deep". We got out of the cage and started walking towards the working places and the lamp I was holding in my hand was nearly dragging on the floor, I was so small.
We got to the coal-face - my brother was a collier - and the most I was doing at first was holding the light for him and his mate to work. At food time I opened my tommy-box to start eating and I saw my brother and his mate were wet with sweat. I thought to myself, "Well, I'd like to be like them." So I got hold of my jack of water and poured some over my trousers. They both laughed. We always took bread and butter and cheese to eat and always cold water in the jack.
I didn't find the place frightening at all; fascinating, rather, there was so much to see. I was quite enjoying myself; it was a new thing. I used to like to look at the horses in those days before there was much mechanisation. We were mostly very fond of them but some of the hauliers could be very cruel in those early days, over-working them and beating them too. There was one they called Dai Blank, he was wicked to his horses - I've seen him pick up a sprag out of a wheel and beat his horse about the head. Quite a few of the men used to get a bit angry about it sometimes, believe me, but the other hauliers didn't seem to mind so much. I've seen horses kicked and everything and there was no need for it; they worked hard, the old horses did, they worked really hard, pulling their tons of coal and they were willing to do it, too.
The day shift then lasted for about eight hours, and in those days there were no pithead baths, so when we got home, my mother got out the bath and the hot water and my brother had a bath first and then I had one. That didn't carry on for long because as soon as I'd come home I'd be out playing football and didn't come home until seven to have my bath. My mother used to get very annoyed about that. But I didn't mind! I was enjoying myself, and through that I got the nick-name of Rigger. I was known by that name for quite a long time.
A couple of days after I'd started work, I started shovelling. I couldn't use a pick or a drill so I was shovelling coal into the trucks. We weren't supposed to use a shovel, mind, we were supposed to use a curling-box. If we'd been caught using a shovel we'd have been warned and perhaps sent out.
There was a good spirit down there between the men and the firemen, a good relationship. There would be arguments at times, of course, over the yardage or tonnage. We were on night-work once and when we'd finished the shift my brother had marked his trams and he was accused of marking another man's trams with his number. He was prosecuted and had a month's imprisonment! But I know he couldn't have done it - he'd never have done such a thing. Someone else with a spite against him must have done it. After that I was moved to another district; it wasn't quite so hot there and the fellows were quite nice to work with, you see.
[This is where the World War I material came originally.]
When I came back home again there wasn't any fuss or much of a welcome. Well, from my own family there was, of course, but everybody was used to seeing soldiers coming back by then; it was the first few who got all the flags and everything. It was a bit of a let-down after the first day or so because I had to go back down the mine; I soon realised that it would have been a better life if I'd stayed, much better.
For a while after the war we were on quite good wages, but later they dropped us right down to a very low level, very poor wages they were in the slump. Then the strikes started!
There was one strike in 1921, pretty general in this area. Trying to get better wages we were, but we were no better off in the end. Men used to go up to the Barry Tip to dig for waste coal; some of them used to sell it - it was anything to earn a few coppers. There was no strike pay then, just a soup kitchen run by volunteers in Bethania Chapel. You could have a bowl of soup and a piece of bread, children as well. There were a few barefoot children to be seen but mostly they were clad - that was only done with a struggle, though.
There was a lot of ill-feeling about in these strikes, towards the coal-owners, especially. There they were, making a very nice living while we were practically starving. Then there were the scabs; people hated the scabs. Only a handful of them went to work, mind, and when they walked along Fox Street to the pit they couldn't be touched because they had police escorts. So we all used to put on our black ties and take off our caps and stand each side of the road, quite silent, as if there was a funeral. All completely silent and the scabs looked quite sheepish. Little chaps they were, mostly, and great big policemen.
I remember standing in Fox Street and seeing Fred Thomas, such a short little chap, and four big policemen escorting him. He was my friend in the Army, too, but he was a scab in this strike - he had a son and I think he was thinking of this son more than anything. But in the next strike he'd changed round completely; in fact, he was one of those who stayed down in the stay-down strike.
Mind, everybody was so desperate, there was no room for anybody to feel any sympathy at all for the scabs. Phil Davies's father was one scab, I remember; he woke up one morning and found his doors, windows, everything tarred and feathered and "Scab" written across his house wall in tar.
On the whole, though, we were very orderly here. They sent a policeman down from Merthyr once; we were standing on the Square, picketing, and he was trying to move us on. Our local sergeant, Sergeant Lett, went up and said to him, "Now, don't you interfere with these chaps - they're quiet and orderly and they're doing no harm. While they're just watching, they're doing no harm." Lett was quite popular hereabouts because he would rather hit a man than run him in. I suppose these days a policeman would get into trouble himself, but in those days the men would rather be hit than arrested. I saw two big men, once, fighting in the fair; Sergeant Lett went up, caught hold of them and banged both their heads together.
Anyway, that strike finished and we went back to work no better off for all our picketing. People who were on light employment because they'd been injured weren't expected to come out in the strikes, of course, and pickets never interfered with them.
There was a worse strike in 1934, I think it was; we all came out around here: Treharris, Taff Merthyr, everywhere, and there was a stay-down strike. It was worst in Taff Merthyr - they turned hoses on the men down underground and there were riots.
There was a very good spirit among the men, then, but the wives were a bit down-hearted with so little money coming in, a little bit of strike pay later on and that was all. Quite a few of the shops gave credit, that was the only way they could keep going. Then when they did start back to work, there were a lot of debts to pay off and quite a few of them didn't pay them off at all. Oh, it was an experience, I can tell you, quite an experience.
The boredom used to get bad when the strike had been going on for a time. Men used to play cards for matchsticks, they were so bored. Later on, when they were all back at work, there were a lot of them who kept on with real gambling - that was illegal, of course. You'd see a circle of men, a card school, playing up on the mountain or somewhere, and a couple of boys watching out for the police. They used to get chased! I was playing a game once, down behind the back gardens of one of the streets, and a cry went up that the police were coming and sure enough, they were! We all jumped over the walls, down the back gardens, through whatever house we came to, out through the front doors and into the houses opposite. The policemen came and said, "Well, they're like a lot of bloody rats going into their holes!" Oh, I've had a bit of fun in my time!
What was my normal routine for the day, now? Let's see, I'd get up at about half past five. My wife would be up before me, getting my breakfast, then she'd fill my tommy-box, but I'd take an empty jack with me. I'd go down to the pit-head baths and change out of my clean clothes on the clean side and leave them in my locker, then cross over to the other side and change into my dirty clothes; I'd leave them there all the week. When I was ready, I'd fill my jack at the tap in the baths so that I'd have a jack full of fresh water. I'd go to the lamp room and draw my lamp; we always used the same one, of course. I had a check with the number of my particular lamp on and when I drew my lamp out I'd put the check in the slot. Then we'd go and wait by the top of the shaft and have a smoke; when the cage came, we'd go down a few at a time. We weren't allowed to take matches or cigarettes down with us, of course. I never took matches down, but sometimes I'd hide my matches until I came back up. We'd get into the cage and the banksman would knock to the engine room for the signal to lower us. The cage was a double- decker with 16 in each deck. We'd be down in a couple of minutes, then we'd have to walk to our work-places. Some of the places were further away than others; I usually walked about a mile or a mile and a half - we were all right as long as we were down by seven. Then we'd meet the fireman; he'd try our lamp and detail us for the work we had to do: different jobs every day. I was on contract packing, filling in with waste where the coal had been cut away. It was very hard work, especially being on contract - that's like piece-work, the more you do, the more you earn. There was a bit of frauding going on among a few men, mind, they'd fill the front of the space in well and leave great gaps behind. It wasn't what you could call safe, doing that, but I suppose no great danger as we were always moving on from where we'd packed. It really was hard work; during that time I developed a duodenal ulcer.
Anyway, we'd be working all day; by this time, I think we'd be working an eight hour day shift with half an hour off to have our food. Well, it was supposed to be twenty minutes, that was what we were allowed, but it was half an hour by the time we'd finished. No morning or afternoon tea breaks or anything like that!
We'd finish at about half past one, walk, and wait in a queue on bottom pit for the cage. We didn't get out at ground level; we used to go right up above the shaft, get out just below the winding gear, then walk down the steps.
Then we'd put our lamps back and take out our checks. The men in the lamp-room would be recharging batteries for the electric lamps and refilling the oil-lamps. One lamp in every so many had to be oil because they showed you where there was gas. If there was gas in a place and you held your lamp up it would go quite blue and fade down quietly and go out in the end. You came across gas quite frequently; I've very often been in a place where there was gas. If it was pretty bad they'd get a hose and blow air from a blast tube at it, blow it away into the old workings and so on - it always came back, of course.
The Union, then, wasn't very strong - well, it was strong in numbers but not powerful against the owners; the owners were adamant. They were mean about compensation, too; if they could get out of paying it, they did.
When I lost my eye, for example, I was working in Taff Merthyr, on the coal face. The fireman came round and said there was gas up in the rib so he had to put up a bit of brattice cloth, a sort of tarred canvas. He said to me, "Hold that side up for me, Will, while I put a nail in this side. Well, while you're there, you might as well knock a nail in that side." I said "I haven't got a hammer or anything to knock it in with." He said, "Well, get a stone to knock it in, it'll go in easy enough there." So I picked up a piece of stone and started hitting the nail and a splinter flew off the stone, straight into my eye - I saw a great big flash in front of me. As it happened, my eye swelled straight up and closed; the doctor in Cardiff told me later it was the luckiest thing out it swelled up like that, otherwise my eye would have run right out because it was pierced, the scar led into the cornea. I wasn't unconscious and it was agony; they took me straight down to the eye specialist. Anyway, I got over that. Well, I say I got over it, but I lost the sight of that eye completely; if I shut my left eye I can't see at all through my right one. No, there was no question of compensation, they sent me to another eye specialist in Swansea. When he examined me he said, "Oh, a bit of eye ointment will meet the case," and that was that. I had the normal weekly compensation, mind, while I was out, but nothing afterwards.
During the last strike, of course, having only one good eye, I could have worked because from that accident on, I was on light employment. But I asked the Federation if it would be advisable for me to go in and they said, "Well, nobody can see you've only got one eye; you'd better not go in or you might be attacked." So I thought to myself, "Well, I wouldn't like to be thought to be one of those scabs, anyway." So I stayed out.
There were lots of activities going on then, mind; the Jazz Bands started, for one. They weren't proper bands, of course, only gazoots and drums, but they were a big thing in the valleys then. I remember one band used to be the Zulus, all blacked up, and there was one old chap from Nelson; he used to dress up as a convict and he was great, chains and everything. They used to march in processions and have competitions, tableaux, marching and counter- marching and everything. They didn't have much money to spare for costumes but they used to manage somehow, they'd make them out of nothing.
I've been working with a man and he's perhaps been working on a staging, near the roof, preparing it for a supporting arch and he's just fallen off it, straight down to the floor, gassed. He'd recover all right, you see, the gas was usually near the roof, not down on the floor. Canaries are not used at normal times to test for gas, only when there's been an explosion, then they always went first. They kept canaries in the manager's office for years, but I don't think they've had them there for some time now.
I've seen a great many accidents and falls underground, quite a lot of men injured and one or two killed. Horses, too. I remember one horse pulling a tram along and he stopped all at once - they had a very sharp sense of danger - and although the haulier tried to drive him on, he wouldn't move. But he'd gone just a bit too far and all at once the roof came down on him, on his neck mostly. He had his collar on and this stone and all the rubbish that came down pressed his collar into his throat and we just couldn't loosen it. He died just like that, choked to death, and all the time his eyes were looking, looking at us as if he was trying to tell us. We were all upset to see him go like that, but all we could do was to put him in a tram and have him taken away.
My bad accident happened 16 years ago now. I'd had that duodenal ulcer and ended up with quite a serious operation in Cardiff - most of my stomach was cut away. Well, I'd been out for two years through that and I was still unfit for heavy work, but I thought, "Well, I don't feel too bad, now, I'll see if I can get some work again." So I saw the under-manager and he said I could have a job on the night shift; I went down the same night and went to work with a roof repairer. Well, that night went off all right; the next night we had to walk over a lot of rubble because the day-shift men had been ripping out the roof to make it high enough for the rings. As I was walking over it, a loose stone fell from the roof and hit me on the back, so after two days at work I had to have a couple of days off.
When I got back I had a job on the tumbler. Now, they'd bring a journey of trams up, full of rubbish, and we'd tip them on to a conveyor. It would go on a belt back to the face and the packers would use it. It was my habit to go up to this tumbler before the others, to oil it and to check everything was ready. On this particular night, when I was walking up, I came to the spot where a roof repairer had been working through the day. I happened to look up and I could see an awful mess up above me, a boulder and a lot of rubbish, just hanging by about an inch or two, on the edge of the ring. I thought "Well I'd better make a dive under this lot," and I did. I went up to the tumbler and I should think about ten of the boys must have passed by and said to me, "Did you see that lot back there, Will?" "I saw it," I said. "Looking bad, isn't it?" "Yes", I said, "it is looking bad, and I'm reporting it to the fireman now."
The fireman came up, and I said to him, "Did you see that lot back there, hanging over that ring?" "Yes", he said, "it is a bit rough there; I'll see about it." Now, I had to take the empty journey of trams down and bring full ones up. The empty ones started off down a slope and they ran all right down that, but it levelled off and the ground there was a swamp; they would stick there and they'd become unhitched. That's what happened that night and I was ages trying to connect them; I did connect them at last, though, and knocked a signal to the driver. Well, he started them up and they left the rails again. They had to choose to leave them right underneath this most dangerous place. I was trying to get them back again when the fireman came down in the deuce of a temper. "What the hell are you doing here?" he said, "All this time and we're still waiting for rubbish." "It's not my fault," I said, "I've been trying to get this back." "Well, come on," he said, "and we'll get it up together. You go on that side and I'll go here." We put a scotch - a piece of wood - to lead the wheels up on to the rail, and gave the engine driver the signal to pull up slowly. I don't know whether it was the vibration that disturbed the roof or what, but as I was bending to put this scotch right, the whole lot fell on top of me. Well, well! I thought it was all over. I tried to tell them to take messages for me, tell them I love them and all that. I really thought I'd had it, you see. I was absolutely trapped and it was very, very narrow there. They all rushed up to me and sent for the ambulanceman to come down, but when they got it all off me there wasn't room for them to carry me, they had to drag me along the floor. My foot had been hit by a stone but the main one caught me on the shoulder and took it out of its socket, nearly down to the elbow, and shattered the nerve. The ambulanceman came down and gave me an injection - morphia. I don't think it helped very much, though, I could feel it right through. They got me clear of this narrow place and took me on a stretcher to Bottom Pit. I could hear quite a few remarks being made that they thought I couldn't hear - "He'll never last through this," and so on, even the ambulanceman. When they got me up, he cleaned it up as best he could and the doctor came, but he said, "Oh, take him to Merthyr straight away, I can do nothing for him here."
They took me of course, and I was put under chloroform that same night and it was all pushed back in; it was all bandaged together when I woke up. The next day the specialist came and he said, "Who's made all this mess of it? Take it all off and get some plaster on it."
Later, I had to go to Cardiff and I had a frame made, holding my arm out in front of me at shoulder level. I hated that, holding it up all the time and, of course, my leg was in plaster from the knee down. Mind, it was very nice in the hospital - they let me go home in an ambulance every weekend and brought me back on the Monday. I was there for six months and when I'd been out for three weeks I had to go back with a dose of pleurisy. When I'd been there a fortnight they found a spot on my lung - TB now, if you please, so that meant 21 weeks in the Isolation Hospital. I was getting quite used to hospital!
The Union Secretary came to see me on one of my weekends at home, listened to all the details and said, "Oh, I think we've got a case here, we'll fight this." Then I had to tell it all over again to the solicitor, then he talked to about ten witnesses and he said we had a good case; they all said that roof had been left in a dangerous state. Then I had to talk to the Inspector of Mines and he had to go and have a look at the place where the accident happened, but of course, it had all been smoothed away by then. They tell me they had a report from the fireman afterwards and according to him, everything had been perfect; I don't know how it was supposed to have happened. Luckily, there were plenty of witnesses who'd seen the whole thing, including two men who'd been working with me that day; they were going to come with me as witnesses if the case had come to court. It all dragged on for about two years, then I had to go to see the solicitor and he told me the Coal Board had offered me £2,700. "Are you satisfied with that?" he asked me. Well, I wasn't altogether satisfied but he pointed out to me that I only had about nine years' working span left and that was the first thing the Judge would take into consideration. "So my advice to you," he said, "is to take this offer."
Well, I knew that if I went to court I might have more but I could have less. So I thought, "Well, I'd better take this now, it's not too bad." And it's been very useful indeed, I must say. Then I've got an extra pension, of course, they call me disabled for life, for the loss of my main limb - the arm is a total loss, of course, but that counts as 70% of total disability.
It's a lot better than if it had happened in the '20s or '30s, anyway; I wouldn't have anything, oh no indeed, it would have been the same as when I lost my eye. Nothing.
[There's one more note about my grandfather, that he couldn't know himself. As well as his obvious disabilities, he also suffered from a classic mineworker's bad chest. If it had been proved to be silicosis, the miner's disease brought on by coal dust in the lungs, he would have been due to receive government-specified compensation. But whenever he went for a check-up, the Coal Board doctor declared that he didn't have silicosis. When he died, an autopsy confirmed what the other doctors had always said: he'd been a sufferer for many years. Of course, since he was predeceased by his wife, there was now no legal requirement for the Board to pay anything to anyone, so the matter was settled, to the Coal Board's convenience.]