Hellfire Corner

A SMALL EDITION OF HELLFIRE CORNER.

Hellfire Corner. I started work at the age of fourteen, at Betteshanger Colliery, Deal, Kent. In 1941. Starting in the Pit Bottom, on the empty side, we coupled the tubs together as they came off the cage (lift). Then they were diverted to either the East or West Side of the mine. My next position was in the 'West Swilly', this was like a valley which held about 50 tubs, which I had to couple and send runs of 10 tubs up 1 in 3 steep, to the West Main. The Main haulage hands handled both full and empty tubs. On the East Side it was a similar outlay, the tubs ran down to a level and then they were clipped onto a rope.
In early 1942, as we had overhead lighting, I left my hand lamp on the last tub, so that I knew which tubs I had coupled into 'runs'. I had just clamped a ‘run’ to the endless rope, and sent it up the 1 in 3 hill, and I was walking back, when suddenly I was thrown backwards into the air, and I awoke with my coat hanging off me, and I was completely in the dark! I rolled onto my hands and knees and felt for the tubs, and then on standing up, I worked my way back to where my lamp was hanging on the last tub. This had also gone out, I switch it on and made my way back to the pit bottom, on finding the other lads, I was told that the mine had been bombed and bits of metal had fallen down the shaft. Then we had to sit and wait for about 6 hours. All the Main Electricity was off, this meant that all the overhead lights were out, and all the water pumps, including the Main Pumps could not pump the water out of the pit, until the Pit Top could get enough steam to generate the electrics, and haul us out.

The second time that I was in a similar incident was about 6am on a Sunday morning. We had all got onto the cage (lift) at No.2 Shaft, to go down to the 2100ft seam, the Banks man had taken the chocks out, (these supported the cage while it was being loaded.) Then signalled to the Engine driver to take the cage down. Just at that time, we all heard an aeroplane diving, and a bomb dropping. It was so close that we could hear it rushing through the air. But the Engine driver was already dropping us down the shaft. We all held our breath, and not a word was spoken, until we stopped at the pit bottom.
There, we were told to stay, we were told that the bomb had entered the Engine house, but had not exploded! We spent most of that Sunday waiting for hours until everything had been checked.

There was another similar incident, and the men had to wait about 10 hours before they could be lifted back to the surface, but I was pleased that I was not involved in that.

Betteshanger was bombed several times, but not enough to hold production up. We had several bombing and shelling raids in Deal.

One occasion that I bring to mind, was a 50-fighter bomber raid on Canterbury. Because some undergraduates had recorded that it did not involve many people as it was in the week. This was wrong. I know because I was there, this happened just after 4pm, on a Saturday evening and it was very busy.
I was an Engineering student at Canterbury Technical College, in Longport Street. We were allowed to ride out of the mine at 1230pm on a Saturday morning- instead of 1.pm.when the shift ended. Then we had to shower and run about 2 miles home, have lunch and catch a special coach to Canterbury about 1.30pm at upper Deal. We had our tea break in Canterbury between 4 and 5pm. Between the after-noon and evening lessons. I was in the lower part of the high street, below the river, having tea when the raid happened. They came very low, bombing and strafing with machine and cannon fire.

When we congregated at the 'Tech' we had a few laughs about it. Four of my friends said that they were in the Lyons house restaurant having tea, they all dived under the table, then suddenly it dawned on them to look up - the table was glassed topped, and above them was a large glass roof! Another lad said that he was in the road, and immediately dived into a shop doorway. The only trouble was that several people followed him, he was laid down, and they stood on him. His blue serge suit still had their footprints on it, this was from the bomb that was meant for the Cathedral hit a house, then blew red brick dust into the air.

On a Saturday evening, as we left Canterbury around 8pm, we had to drive through the country without lights. We could hear the bombers passing over; this was a night that they bombed Canterbury heavily. We could still see the glow of the fires from Deal, around 20 miles away. We were pleased that our driver was from Deal, as he wanted to get home too!

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