A Reluctant Conscript 1944-1948 Part 1 & 2

Part 1
It was not entirely unexpected when the buff envelope came through the letterbox shortly after my eighteenth birthday. What was not expected were the orders to report to The Prince of Wales Colliery, Pontefract for training as a miner.
Could this be correct? Had I not passed A1 at my medical and been accepted for the Fleet Air Arm. Surely this was a mistake, No, the buff form was emphatic, if I failed to present myself at Pontefract I would be arrested and imprisoned.
No jaunty naval uniform for me.
The long standing room only, train journey north was punctuated with numerous unscheduled stops, finally arriving at a blacked out deserted Pontefract station at 1.00am, six hours late.
Cold February night, What to do? Where to sleep? A kindly policeman and a whitewashed prison cell was the answer.
Little did I know I was about to start the next four years consuming vast amounts of coal dust.
I was to be a dusteater.
Ernest Bevin had decreed it.

Part 2
The four weeks training in March '44 was memorable for the non stop freezing north east winds that constantly blew across Pontefract Race Course.
Our intake of about thirty young men and a few service men who had taken the option to leave the forces for coalmining attended Ministry of Information films designed to show what we might expect to find underground.
We were to find out that not all pits were identical as regards equipment, geological conditions were responsible for this. So we were shown a little of everything. The most important lesson I learned was how to lift heavy weights, "protect your back lad, legs together, use your leg and thigh muscles not your back"
Then the morning came for the BIG DROP, new shiney black boots with gleaming steel toecaps and our crowning glory --- our new black composite Bakelite helmets we were herded to the pit shaft. Searched for matches and cigarettes and urged into the waiting cage.
Nervous apprehension was masked by hilarity, and then the moment when our stomachs suddenly left their normal position as the cage dropped like a stone.
I thought that it was not too bad after all.
Then as I later found out all winding men had their own speciality, they had mastered the art of causing maximum discomfort by applying the brakes in a series of jolts causing the cage and it's unfortunate occupants to bounce as if on elastic, giving our stomachs a sensation that we would never forget.
Groans from all future dusteaters.
Next morning our physical capabilities were put to the test by an ex army sergeant. It was time to toughen these young, soon to be miners.
More torture.
The exposure to the elements, a run around Ponte racecourse, bone chilling March winds, never to be forgotten.
Oh dear, let me get back to the constant temperature that existed underground!!!!!
This was the pattern for four weeks.
dusteater

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