Victor Vectis

Your Grandad sounds like a good bloke!

To continue on an off topic, but beer and coal related, theme...... Back in 1970 something I recall skiving orf from Markham Main pit, Armthorpe, to the nearest pub. It was a Darleys, of Thorne, house. The beer, real by CAMRA's definition, was served through an electric pump. (Invincible Sphereon? A plastic cube containing a half pint sphere to meter the beer) It was served in a 24oz glass and the sparkler on the pump was done up tight. I was served with a pint of froth! And as a callow youth from that there London I was not used to such things.

Have you shrunk since? 😀

On Brodsworth pit tip? Had, ahem, fun at Brodsworth in early 1985 running away from thugs weilding trunchons.

< seriously off topic, but.....> What was the system at Emley Moor? I was told that it was the last pit in Yorkshire that used the three shift, hand filling cycle. All the faces I worked on were power loaders. SAM ex Hatfield NUM

Is The Bell in Walcot Street still worth a visit (or two?)

A former NUM member writes: Steady on, careful what you say here! I posted a trade union supporting comment yesterday and had it taken down.

Birmingham Canal Navigations 24 hour Marathon Challenge

Sam Smiths beer and 'Big Ditch' railway pictures on the wall. What is there not to like!

Hoo Ness. Can't remember where I copied these from.

Racehorses owned by the Assheton Smith family.

The full report of the Lofthouse Disaster here: https://www.nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/accidents-disasters/yorkshire/lofthouse-colliery-disaster-wakefield-1973/ IIRC the Precautions Against Inrushes Regs came about due to Lofthouse. Going back to 1950 there was an inrush at Knockshinnock Castle Colliery. The rescue of the 116 trapped miners was dramatised in a wonderful 1952 film, The Brave Don't Cry. One of the few (or only?) films with the mining engineer (played by John Gregson) as hero.

Sounds like its the proper Welsh stuff from Ffos y Fran. If its very shiny and soft, soft enough to break with your hands leaving lots of dust and small stuff, then I'd put money on it be so. It burns very well in the attached pic. Lay in a stock while you still can. The heritage sector is getting quite worried about where it's going to get its coal from in the future.

The Mines (Precautions Against Inrushes) Regulations 1979 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1979/318/made General duty to take precautions against inrushes 3. With respect to every working in a mine, it shall be the duty of the manager to prevent any inrush into the working of— (a) gas from disused workings (whether mine workings or not), or (b) water or material that flows or is likely to flow when wet from any source.

It's not Haig Pit being reopened. The proposed mine is a reopening of a pair of drifts that were used to gain access to anhydrite deposits. The coal measures lie at greater depth so the plan is to refurbish the existing drifts and drive them deeper to get to the coal. Lots of info here: https://www.westcumbriamining.com/