Project DirectoryProject sitesTeachers



Home

Miner's Accounts of Life Dahn t' pit

Miners Case Study - Bernard Kenney

Miners Case Study - Trevor Eager

History of The Pit


Photograph of miners who worked at Gomersal Pit in the 1950's © Spen Valley Civic Trus
This picture shows Eric Suddick
This is a picture of the tippler and is where the tubs would come when they were full of coal. It was at the surface of the colliery and the tubs would come out of the pit in the cage and move on to the tippler © Spen Valley Civic Society


   
   
Miner's Accounts of Life Dahn t' pit
 Location: Bradford

Coal Mining was a source of work across the Spen Valley area for over a thousand men at its peak in the 19th century, with over 40 pits identified from old maps of the area.

By 1970 only one mine remained; Gomersal Colliery or Nutter Lane Pit as it was sometimes called. Then Lofthouse Colliery flooded and 7 men drowned. This hastened the end for Gomersal which was also thought to be at risk of flooding from water trapped in old workings

Here are some quotes from Miner's who worked down the pit over the years:


“I were 14 when I actually started. I left school at t’Friday night and I went for some pit clogs on t’ Saturday and I started work at t’Monday”
Gomersal miner born 1910


“It was hard work. Harder than anyone can imagine. In my early days at the pit I would be on my hands and knees seven hours a day, seven days a week”
Eric Wright, Miner 1944-1973


“When I first started there wasn't any baths. You just had to come home and get washed in the sink”
Geoff Camponi 1950s


“… at that time we hadn’t got mechanised and we were using just wooden pit props and wooden bars to keep the roof up … as they got the coal out what we had to do in the afternoon shift was to withdraw the props and the plank. Now that was dangerous, because we had what they called drawers off, and they had to draw those props and bars out from that old track and just let the roof fall in. Sometimes the roof would stay up for about 30 or 40 yards while he was drawing this timber off, and then all of a sudden it would just simply collapse – but it’s one of those things you got used to.”
Gomersal miner born 1921


“I have never been so completely bone-weary, I have never ached so much, I have never been in such despair in all my life. I look back even now, over this distance, I look back on it with absolute horror. ….The only mechanisation they had was an electric winding-engine which dropped us down the shaft ….And the coal seams were very shallow. One would be fortunate to have a twenty inch roof height.”


“I was walking down the roadway with a colleague and felt scratching on the back of my hand. I brushed it off and carried on walking but felt the scratching again. I turned to him and saw in his hand a bundle of detonators. I said to him “What the **** are you doing with those! They should be in a leather case.” He replied “Don’t worry about them.” And opened his jacket to reveal bundles of blasting powder. “These are what you should be worried about.”









 


Legal Notice | Site by Torchbox
© Countryside Agency 2006