These pages, which cover Cliff’s coal mining stories, are partly written by him, and partly by me, in the third person, based on his notes. His first job was at the Ackers mine, where he worked on at least three separate occasions, he said, as a general “tidy-upper and general dogsbody” in the engineering and blacksmiths’ workshop. In his seventies he could only remember a few of the men who worked there, some of them from their names in a 1935 wages book. ~ Ian
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I remember dear old Charley working at a lathe — a fixer-upper of many things, with great ability.
Alf was the unforgettable fiery blacksmith — sharpening miners’ picks, heating them in the furnace and hammering them into shape.
Mr Gibson was the electrical engineer.
It was a busy place but I felt that I was getting in the way rather than being useful. I’m sure that the boss had felt sorry for my Mum, who wanted me back home. Certainly my efforts weren’t badly required and the job didn’t last long.
Another character was Sandy, who liked to have fun with a muggins like me. He was a deputy shot firer. He worked a face of coal himself when not otherwise engaged, and I took in his empty skips and brought out the full ones.
I must’ve done other trucking jobs too, as I remember well how I lost a good deal of skin off the knuckles of my backbone until I became accustomed to the low roofs. Stretched right out pushing the skips, my back would scrape against the timbers until I learnt how to avoid it. The coal faces must’ve been only about 4 feet high in places.
Sandy caught me out twice. He would wait until he heard me bringing in a skip, light a short fuse, take off down a side road and yell “Fire!” The sudden blast of air would blow out my miner’s lamp and leave me in the pitch darkness. Only someone who has worked down the mine can know how dark that is. On the first occasion I nearly threw a panic. No light, and I had not then become used to the lamp. After I’d recovered my wits I put my filthy, muddy hands into my pocket for a match to light my lamp. It sounds easy but you try doing it for the first time in inky blackness with filthy muddy hands. If I drop the matches I’m in real trouble, I thought. I don’t even know where I am. I had only started work the day before.
I remember very little about my work, although a few things stick in my memory.
I drove the Shetland pony holding the full skips up to the top of the drive, where the coal was tipped into Laurie’s truck.
There was no machinery of any sort in the mine, and everything had to be done by hand, which brings me to what used to take up a good deal of the short time that I worked there.
Water is usually a problem in mines, and here it was solved using a siphoning system. The drive entered the ground about three quarters of the way up a hill, while, since the bottom of the hill was lower than the lowest part of the mine, a siphon could work well. If the flow of water from the siphon stopped, it could be because the water had run out in the mine, so I would go below to check it out.
If there was no water, no problem. I’d wait until it built up again, then walk down to the bottom of the hill, turn off the stopcock, then walk to the highest point, remove a bung and fill the pipe with water carried from somewhere else in a bucket — sometimes from down the hill.
Then, with the pipe full and the bung replaced, down the hill again to turn on the stopcock. An automatic stop valve dealt with the other end of the pipe.
All going well the water flowed freely, but sometimes the rusty one inch pipes developed leaks, and finding them took some doing. Crouched down listening and looking for leaks as I followed that pipe down the mine wasn’t an enjoyable occupation. I carried a role of tape at all times to seal up the leaks. Having found one I’d hope there weren’t any more. Having hopefully found them all I’d repeat the performance already described to start the siphon working again. I believe that later a new pipe was installed.
One day Jimmy came rushing over to our place in great excitement to tell me of an amazing discovery he’d made. He took me over to their washhouse to show me. One end of a hosepipe was in a half-filled tub of water, and water was flowing out the other end into their garden. He’d been watering the garden and after disconnecting the hose dropped it into full tub. He was dreadfully disappointed to learn that siphons were nothing new.
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I can recall only one other experience that impressed me. On the left, about halfway down the drive as I remember, was a tunnel that led into a seam of coal that had been worked out. The pillars of coal that held up the roof were now being withdrawn. That is, as much coal as possible was being taken from those pillars as the miners worked their way back towards the main entrance. At the same time the timber that supported the roof was being withdrawn. Not all, but much more than I thought was safe. The only reason I was there was to help carry up the timber. I was expecting the roof to collapse at any moment. The others didn’t seem to be at all concerned.
Mining seemed to me to be a very dangerous occupation. I would much rather have been outside rain, hail or sunshine.
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That job ended after just a couple of weeks, when Cliff and his mates decided to ride their bikes across the hills to Whananaki for the day.
We took plenty of food, a billy to have a boil-up, and swimming togs etc. I can’t remember how we entertained ourselves. Probably we swam, hiked around a bit no doubt, and gathered some pipis. We must have enjoyed ourselves as we decided to stay the night in some unoccupied public work tents where there were some canvas stretcher bunks. Our food supplies were running low so we cooked up some pipis for dinner and had fun. Without blankets the night got very cold, so we ran up and down the road a time or two to get warm. Next morning we probably bludged some food from someone. We didn’t go hungry at any rate. There were a number of other people there, and Hikurangi people were, and probably still are, generous.
Soon after midday a severe pain in my right groin began to cause me a great deal of concern. About three weeks previously I had visited the Doctor with a similar pain and he’d told me that if it hadn’t gone in a few hours to come and see him again. Also, that it was very important for me to see a doctor immediately if it happened again in the future. Then the pain had disappeared in an hour or two, but now it was back in a big way, and I knew something had to happen fast. It was very painful indeed. I told the others about it and we took off home on our bikes.
I rode as if the devil himself was chasing me and the others had problems trying to keep up. We had to walk up the Whananaki cutting and I set a fast pace. No reduction gears on bikes in those days. About halfway up the cutting we were passed by Charlie and his wife in their car. They were very upset later because I hadn’t stopped them and asked for a ride.
I didn’t use my brake going downhill and my friends must’ve thought I was mad. I later heard that when Albert arrived home he crawled under the bed. His mother asked him what was wrong. He was very frightened. He said, “Cliffy Baugh is dying.” There was a headline in the Northern Advocate about that ride.
When I arrived home I found Mum and Dad had visitors, and I had trouble persuading them that I needed urgent attention. They got the next-door neighbour over to ask his opinion. He had training in first aid apparently and recommended calling a doctor right away, and my complaints were taken more seriously. Dr Armstrong soon arrived and after a brief examination called for an ambulance. By then everyone was getting very worried, and when the ambulance arrived Mum insisted on going with me to hospital. She would have to go home by bus, with few cars about in those days. On arrival I was rushed to a bed in Ward Five wondering what would happen next. Soon there arrived a bowl of warm water, brush, soap and a safety razor.
Completely ignorant of such things I wonder what she was going to do with it. I was very embarrassed about exposing my private parts, then anxious when the razor proved to be so blunt it was pulling the hair out, and was replaced with a cutthroat. However no damage was done.
I was taken to the operating theatre and lifted onto the operating table. A mask was put up on my face and I was asked to breathe deeply. Chloroform. My first experience of it was dreadful. I was falling down a huge steel tube hundreds of feet long and as I hit first one side and then the other there was a terrific bang, bang, bang noise.
I woke up the next morning to find the next bed occupied by someone I knew. His operation had followed mine the night before. Soon a sister came along, stopped opposite my friend’s bed and started to tell him off. You behaved dreadfully last night, she said. You fought like a lunatic and hit me in the face.
Then she looked at his card, then at mine, and said “Oh it wasn’t you, it was him.”
There were three of us from Hikurangi, and thirteen who’d had the same operation.
My first wash brought an uncomplimentary remark from the nurse. “My word you’re dirty,” she said. “What’s all that black stuff under your toenails?”
Coal dust of course, and I hadn’t had a wash since Saturday morning.
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Cliff couldn’t complain about his treatment in hospital, or the nurses’ attentions. After ten days he was told they were short of beds and he’d have to go home, but he’d need to stay in bed for another week when he got home. They wheeled him down to the bus stop in a wheel chair. While he was waiting for the bus he started wandering around — until he was spotted by one of the Sisters and given another telling off.
His job at the mine had been taken by one of the boys he’d gone to Whananaki with. He wasn’t asked to go back and he made no effort to.