A Guernsey evacuee Coal mining in Clipstone

Patrick John Harper interviewed by Matt Harvey 15/4/2005
Transcription by John David of a Video recording of the interview.

My father moved me five miles away to a place called Clipstone, a coal mining village, nothing there but a coal mine. Anyway my sister was living in that village, see, she lived in the barbers shop, but in the house at the back. The only barber’s shop — I’m not giving no names, because you shouldn’t, eh, - of foul people, eh — Well, I mean, its better not to, because you can’t prosecute them, too late, eh. So anyway she was living with this barber chap, which was again a great friend of my father, you see.. That’s why she went there. Anyway, I went as far as I know to live with her sister, down the road, in another street further down.
There were seven avenues, seven straight roads, like that, like a ladder, and she lived in the main highway, the main thoroughway, the other side was the main church road, with the church, and the school at the end, and at the back was a coal mine, Clipstone Colliery. Now of course I went to Clipstone school, while I was there, because I was eleven or twelve, eh, and when I became the age of fourteen I had nowhere to go but to go to the mine, eh, get a job at the mine, so I got a job at the mine, and you had to do twelve weeks on top, what they called on top, so they had, like, conveyor belts going away from each other like that, you had the big conveyor belt in front of you, and you picked out the different grades and throw it onto the different conveyor belts, you know, you made mistakes at first but you got used to it, you know, and when you had done your twelve weeks training, and of course going to school they kicked me out of school because I was backward, see, I couldn’t read or write, in the old days during the war they didn’t think about backward school, if you couldn’t do anything they left you. Anyway, that’s right, I went down the mine, straight down that big shaft, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it in pictures I suppose, eh, and I had a job when the three empty tubs used to came out of the cage, by pushing them pushing in three full ones, it used to push the empty ones out, and I used to while they were still rolling I used to push them down the drive, down the road, they call it, till you reached an air door, an air pressure door, and its got a bar sticking up like that, it would go underneath the tubs, and then once it ‘s got the other side the tubs used to carry on on their own because there was an incline, all the way down to wherever they go, you know. And then of course after a while I went to the other side of the cage, and I used to stop them from coming, the full ones, by chucking in a piece of wood like that, narrow on both ends and fatter in the middle, they called them lockers, and you chuck it into the wheel as its turning and it being thin it finds its way in and it stops the wheel, and gradually they all stop, and once you’ve stopped it — and if it’s not quite far enough you let it roll a little bit and push it back in— and when you’ve got it right near the cage you put a wedge underneath the front wheel of the first one, a big wedge so that it can’t go over the top, you know, and take the locker out, and then when the cage come down with empty tubs, pull the wedge out, in it would go, and knock the empty ones out for the bloke the other side like I was before, you know. Well anyway the worst part is to come, well not the worst part. The most important bit. When they put me down the mine, I didn’t have no boots, I had a pair of old football boots, you know what football boots look like, they’re made for football. Anyway there were no studs in it, so you were walking like walking on bare feet eh? And underneath it was broken. The poor coal miners felt sorry for me, but they were low wages them days, eh? Anyway they all clubbed together and they bought me a lovely pair of boots with steel toecaps for safety, because if you drop a lump of coal on your toe it would crush your toe, eh. So, of course, I was grateful for that, and of course I would come up at two o’clock — seven till two in the morning — seven o’clock in the morning, and of course I’d be late most mornings, I’d always seem to bump into the under-manager, that’s the manager that’s down below, they had an office down there, same as they’d got on top, just the same, electric light and everything, but not near the coal-face where the gasses are. He’d say “You’re late again, Patrick” he was a Scotsman, actually, I think he was Scots. Anyway he’d go into the cage, and he’d grab hold of both sides like this, grim death, you know, because he knows what’s going to happen, you see, I’d be there standing in the middle of the cage with my hands in my pockets, and down it would go like a rocket, straight down. Have you seen the big wheels on the top? Well you’ve seen how fast they’re running, eh? They’re big, eh, but the cables are like that, eh, big cables, to take all that weight, to bring the weight up. Anyway he’d say “you’re a brave boy”. Down we’d go very near a mile deep, they told me, it wasn’t the deepest, I think the Welsh had the deepest one, He said, go on then, off you go. And he give me an orange, he always had an orange. He never said you must be early. Liked the company, I suppose. Just missed them, and they don’t said “Where’s Pat” . And you’re not allowed to go down unless the safety gates are on. They have special gates that they slide on, you may have seen that in the Welsh mines, eh, they push down a safety gate so as if anything happens you don’t fall up against the wall, because you’re going down at a speed, eh, you can’t see the wall moving, you can’t see the wall moving when you’re gong down the wall’s going up, and its very quick. While I was down there they told me a bloke was told by the top manager that he was going to send him down the mines on Monday morning you know, and he was really frightened at going down the mine, he didn’t want to go down the mine he wanted to stay on the top, The said — whether there’s any truth in it, but they told me anyway — that he made the sign of the cross on the floor, he put his helmet, his light, and something else and something else that he had, I can’t remember, and then he jumped down the shaft. Oh. They said, a terrible mess down below, I believe them, why would they tell you, eh. I don’t know why they told me, it was in a conversation, I suppose.

Pat Harper

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