Explosives and Explosions Blog 1 by Eric Eaton Explosives used in coal mines 1627 First recorded use of black powder for rock blasting (Hungary). 1670 Black powder use spreads to tin mines of Cornwall England by German miners Explosives are used in underground mines and quarries to break coal and other rocks. An explosive is a solid or a liquid substance
Continue Reading
What Came Next We all know what came next! Pits closed; machinery and men all thrown on the scrap heap – or down a closed mine. BUT, we’ve still got our memories and we still have a passion for passing on our ‘coal mining communal black gold’ to future generations.
Continue Reading
Familiarity can breed contempt! Short cuts and lessons learned! This drawing by Brian Morley, Mining Artist*, shows the other side of pit life. When familiarity with the ever present dangers can lead to corners being cut and dangers being ignored. These are some of the stories we have been told.
Continue Reading
Safety Alerts and HSE Reports Yesterday we looked at manriding accidents. Today we are drawing your attention to HSE (Health and Safety Executive) recommendations arising from the Silverwood and Bentley fatal accidents and other analysis arising from the more widespread introduction of Underground Locomotive Haulage into coal mines following the
Continue Reading
Manriders: Accidents and Fatalities Inevitably when transporting large numbers of men over long distances underground, from time to time, accidents occurred. There were occasions when there were serious injuries and fatalities. In Nottinghamshire, Bob Bradley on the Healey Heroes sites records an accident at Blidworth Colliery on the 2nd March
Continue Reading
“Paddy In, Belts Out” Taking inspiration from this postcard of Brian’s (Brian Morley, Mining Artist – Brian’s postcards will be on sale again when the Museum reopens), we are featuring Manriding in our blogs this week. Over the week, we will look in more detail at Manriding in pits in
Continue Reading
Look what we’ve found. How many ex miners have seen one of these? We couldn’t resist sharing this training manual. It comes from the Culture North Lanarkshire museum. To see it as a slideshow in its full glory click on the link below https://www.culturenlmuseums.co.uk/SIModes/Detail/14223 It’s an absolute gem of mining
Continue Reading
This is a drawing of me when I got buried. “We had just fired the ripping, got back to lip and found the shots had blown three props out from under Bull bar. I went under the lip and started digging out to reset the props when some of the
Continue Reading
Brian Morley, mining artist. Born in Nottingham on January 30th, 1937, Brian started at Linby Colliery aged 16 and worked in the pit bottom. Brian went in the Army for 3 years in 1957. When he came out of the Army he started at Moorgreen Pit; his job was ‘ganging’
Continue Reading
“I am a tunneller, I must look after the others first”. Sapper William Hackett VC, 254th Tunnelling Company, June 1916. When we hold our two minutes silence at 11.00am today, we will all take this opportunity to recognise the bravery of everyone who fought for their country. We at the
Continue Reading