'Black Gold, Kindred Spirits'

Q You were involved in the 34 strike, first of all what was it like, what sort of things went on and what was your role?

Well actually the strike was over, a chappy told a boy on the brace not to sweep the brace and they sacked him and that was the start of the strike, but I was only 16 or 17 when that happened. And we were naturally not so involved in it as we should have been, because, how can I put it, well the whole thing had to be organised, that's when the Broad Committee I believe came into it, is that what you want. And they formed an Entertainment Committee and there was a Committee that went round collecting, around all the farms or whatever, there were slaughter houses to get supplies. And there was wood and timber, they used to go and chop wood to keep the fires going because they couldn't get much coal unless they went around the dumps and picked up a little. Well in the mine, there happened to be barbers, butchers, hairdressers and they all went back into the trade. I think people were digging up their shoes that had been in the cupboard for years to get new soles put on them, and everybody lined up for haircuts. But there was what they, called a Gunny bag parade after a while. They had supplies of potatoes, onions, they night get a beef or two from the cockies and they'd get them killed in the slaughter houses. You'd go down with a Gunny bag and you'd get a shovel full of spuds, onions, it depends on the size of your family, and a lump of meat, it doesn't matter what particular cut of it might be, but you'd get a lump that's edible. As I said before, you get a haircut, get your shoes and all that type of thing done. You get your wood for those that required any fuel. And the younger ones they, I'm talking about myself at this stage, we used to get our supplies and head to the beach and camp and catch some fish, some rabbits which was a great supply at that particular time, but that was the 34 strike and besides, and this Entertainment Committee, you had quite a few local artists, I'll mention them if I can remember, there was the Spooner's and the Mullin's and the Scotch sisters and then there was Sid Lumsen and then there was a Mrs Fairless used to play the violin and there was a good concert party. And we used to go around all the local towns, such as Dunbo, Fish Creek, Foster, Korrumburra if I remember rightly and quite a few of the out lying towns, prior to the concert there'd be a party, a party would go out, organise it and advertise them and then the concert party would go round and move in and we used to, we would naturally do the doors or some job. But then they used to have community singing also and we had to..... a chap and I had to type old Boomerang song books, modern songs at the time, they were projected on the screen to sing along. I'm not sure about this, but I think Idris Williams, he became the secretary of the Miners Federation, he was our secretary or president here at the time and he used to conduct the singing and do a terrific job. So this helped entertain the strikers and raise some money and they got old films and replayed, showed them in our theatre. I think that was just more for the entertainment of the miners, there was some real good films re-shown, it cost a shilling to get in if I remember rightly and that was the extent of that.

Q It was a tough time?

Well, it wasn't as tough as what it would be under today's conditions because there was no hire purchase, no one had much hire purchase at all if they had any at all, they didn't have their refrigerators, cars and all that type of thing, it was only a horse and cart or a bike, that's what they were satisfied with, but at times it wasn't as hard as what it would be under these conditions of today. But when I look back at it was a lot of enjoyment because you know, the strike was serious enough, but they just put up with the conditions they had because they had to fight for conditions in those days. Wasn't much money but a lot of fun.

Q How do you think the Depression affected Wonthaggi?

Well, I think it assisted Wonthaggi when I look back on it, I mean I'm not knocking the sustenance or the dole, the chappies that didn't have any work, but they had so many days work and they used to be on the roads, not like today they had to work for whatever they got. And as far as Wonthaggi was concerned I think it was what helped them to make the roads and establish the town, but the miners…..I'm not too sure about this, don't know if it happened, a little earlier or a bit latter, I wasn't in the mine when it happened, I'm talking about the Depression prior to me getting a job. I know my father he, I think the idea was they were going to put so many men off, first in seniority and they decided at the Miners Union that they'd work broken time and keep them all employed and this is what they did, they were working 2 or 3 days a week, just a pittance to survive. And that kept... back in the mine quite few that would have been put off otherwise, but the ones they did put off, they went on the susso and that's when they worked on the roads and using the burnt stone from the mine and actually the roads they put in town are still the same roads, just a matter of maintaining them. So I think it assisted the town and yet the depression doesn't do anybody good, when you've got it you've got to put up with it and this is where we got out of our problem.

Q Was it difficult for a lot of the families?

It was...... one thing about Wonthaggi as a young bloke, the girls which you were interested in, there's no work for girls at all, it's a mining town. And the girls had to leave the town and the boys got into the mine, it was a typical mining town, there were no other industries at all. The only girls that worked were probably hospital jobs or domestics, it was a bit of a problem.

Q About Kirrak, can you tell us about it?

Well, Kirrak was a mine that was in the development stages up till 1945 and they had to close it down because of a manpower shortage and it was idle for 10 years till 55. In the meantime when it first closed there was a regular inspection to make sure it was in order and everything with the ventilation and whatever of the mine. And so there was a monthly inspection carried out regularly for about 12 months, and then like everything else it started to dwindle down to 3 months and then it got to the stage when there was no inspections at all. And so….I should think about 52 or so maybe earlier than that, they decided to go down and have another inspection which they did and when we got down to the bottom we found out that the water was building up, it was in the stone drive section of it, that's where the development had been taking place, prior to that it hadn't been on full production do you follow that, it was all development to get into the coal, that's why they closed it for want of manpower. And anyhow we went down, we found out that one of these stone drives, the water was coming up, at this stage it hadn't done any damage other than the electrical equipment such as the heavy cables. So they went down and they cut the cables and tied them up out of the road incase the water got up to the cable, the other stuff was all drowned of course. And so we went away again and they came back a few months later and they put a pipe column down because there'd never ever been a pump pumping out of Kirrak because it had been a dry colliery see. So they put a 5 inch black steel, it was all they could get in those days, see it was so close after the war, didn't have any of this galvanised stuff, so they put this heavy 5 inch column down, and as a matter of fact it never pumped any water. Didn't connect it up to the pump, didn't get up to that stage because time went by again and it wasn't till 55...….20 shaft was gradually starting to fold up it was getting to the end of its life and they seen that they had to get another colliery somewhere or mine opened up somewhere to produce. So we started to, or we decided that we'd go and open up Kirrak, which was the General Manager and all those who had anything to say about it. So we went, got in the cage this day when we thought it was just a matter of going down the mine. So Johnson, so he got on this cage and it went down and it wouldn't go through and all he had was a light, a signal, a torch or something flickering up, when you get down to 1200 feet you can't see any torch light, but he couldn't get down that far, so there's a knocka line the indicator on the side wasn't working. So anyhow he came back, we came back and put a new knocka line down so we had some communication with the driver. And got on the cage, there was three of us onboard and we got down and got stuck half way and to make things, to put you in the picture, there's grippers on the side of a cage, if a rope breaks or anything, the grippers come in and you just stop dead. Normally a cage will only drop 2 inches and they were tested every 2 months, that was my job. And these were all really rusted up and they weren't working at all. So we were going down this day just trying to get to the bottom, but half way down we got stuck and we had loose rope coiling all around us, to me if I remember rightly to about 20 odd feet, and the cage, these grippers weren't working and she started to, gradually start sliding, it looked like dropping about 20 feet. But anyhow we got through there and we just come down and tightened up the rope and eventually got to the bottom, the shaft was swollen up in places, and damaged. And when we got down we found that the water was right up to the top, up the shaft. So the problem was how we were going to bail it out. So they went away and they made a tank about 600 gallon tank, and they took the cage out and swung this into the shaft. And the idea was to lob it into the water and it had a little trap door that filled up every, 2 or 3 minutes, there was 600 gallons heading to the top because of an automatic trip up there and the water would just run out. But we found that with the water, the shaft was pretty well damaged in this area. So I had to get in the water and swim around and make sure that the cage was entering the water all the time. And some days I would be in the water nearly all day. You had to nail temporary skids on the side and the cage would drop in the water and away it would go again But when we eventually got down to the bottom level, even the timbers, the 12 by 12 timbers and the 12 by 18 timbers that were the frame of the shaft, they were all broken just like a match with all the pressure with the water, everything had swollen up. So all that had to be replaced if we were going to use that bottom level. But anyhow they put another pipe column down because when they connected the pump up to try and pump the water out of these other headings they found out that this original pipe that was put in was leaking, it was a heavy, heavy pipe, and being just a black steel coated with tar and so on it had rusted and was no good for the job. So they put another column down, a galvanised one and then we start pumping the water out, but then the problem was to repair the shaft down to the original level. And in the meantime, the General Manager, Tom Johnson, he was a go getter, he was a terrific fellow actually, and he said to me, "Well, we'll re-timber this shaft," the idea was from the 30 feet down to the original level, his idea was to fill it with ash you know and you'd just remake your shaft as you go down, it was just like shaft sinking. But in the meantime, Tommy, he took sick, he reckoned he had to go and get his gall stones out and when they opened him up he was full of cancer and he died, he didn't come back. And then the reigns were handed over to Jimmy Byrne who was the manager at the time, he got the promotion to General Manager. Well, he gave that idea away, so he decided that this top level where it was actually, it was a substation for the transformers, the top level, and they seemed to think that that it was going to be practical to start developing from that area. And anyway, we made that landing and got everything prepared for that. But then they started getting into the older headings, close hand in to see what it was all about, and we had to keep getting rid of the water. So, we, one morning we went down into where one of the old workings was and we found a fire, it was hard to see it, it was just like two eyes looking at you, because we ran drills through, in case we ran into old workings, getting into water. But anyhow, it was spontaneous combustion took over, where the slack had all riddled down and become consolidated, but anyhow it got on fire. And the manager in his wisdom of course, he thought he would seal it off. When you seal off, whatever ventilation get into the fire you brick it up or bag it off and make it a complete seal, but you always leave a little tube through the seals so you can take samples. The idea of the samples is they can tell if it can support combustion, the atmosphere. And you get monoxide, dioxide and all this, but when it gets complete dioxide, well you've got no combustion at all, so they know you can open it up, but this didn't work as well as he thought. It went on and on and on, but eventually they decided that, with the advice from the chief mines inspector, that they not be ealed down and dig it out. But it was the most hazardous workings I ever had to put up with in my life. What would happen, we'd start digging it out, but the strata was that hot and the steam, the steam was about 18 inches off the floor, the steam would have like a partition, you'd have to crawl underneath it, if you even put your hand up in this steam it would nearly scold you and this is the conditions you had to work in. But they eventually drove, bored holes and put pipes into the coal seam and tried to fuse water into it, and this created more steam of course. But the next thing was dig, so they kept on digging and shoveling the hot coals out and pumping water in all the time. And this took quite, 3 or 4 months I suppose if I remember rightly to put this fire out. But the conditions you had to work in, I mentioned the steam and even the slag on the roof it was falling, land on ya and it raised blisters, but eventually we beat it, we dug it out and from then on they brought extra miners in and developed it, Kirrak.

Q Kirrak was a bit of a disaster?

Yes, but in the meantime, before they really opened it up and brought the miners into it, the poppet legs on the surface…..the poppet legs are wooden structures on the surface, well they'd deteriorated, they'd been left idle and not in use and they had to be replaced. So they decided to put steel poppet legs in, which was about 90 to 95 feet high you know, they're pretty high. And Danny Carr and the fitters in the mine, they assembled these and we had to pull down the old legs and erect these new legs. And before the miners could go down, and the air shaft was in the same condition and the legs that were built on the air shaft is the ones that is down near the station now. And that shaft was in a bad condition too. So we made a cage to work in the shaft, made a smaller cage because some of the ends were broken and, so the cage could travel through it. But was later on when the mine was working, I don't know whether you've heard this, but the surface caught on fire, the surface winding room caught on fire and burnt. Well that was, 3 or 4 years before the mine closed all the machinery on the surface, in the engine room, the compressor room, that building was completely wiped out and so was half the change rooms. So there was a bit of a panic on because the town was relying a lot on the production from Kirrak to carry on. But the machinery that was burnt was automatic machinery that was brought from England and it was the only automatic machinery at that time I think in Victoria, it was made for a push button automatic control and it was a re-generated type of motor, breaking system, really elaborate. And anyhow when it got burnt, well everything, whether they closed the mines down or re-build it, but they decided to re-build, to redevelop it. So they had a motor which was on the 20 shaft winder motor which was a 450 horse power job and the whole electrical system had to be reorganized because it was a different principle completely. So they got into that and they saved all the, well it was mostly second hand parts that went into it, but they did it, changed it all over, it was a very crucial time in our history really.

Q Coal in Kirrak?

The mine, the coal in Kirrak……………Kirrak was at a disadvantage to the other pits because the quality of coal itself wasn't a high grade, it was a high ash content if I remember rightly, it was about 60 percent ash and that is no good for these grates and boilers for commercial use, but it was used in our substation, in our power station here. But the disadvantage with Kirrak again was the faulting, whereas the bores showed there was a pretty constant seam of coal, I think it was every five or six chain they used to put a drill down and it seemed as a constant seam, but what happened in between there was a fault, it might jump down 10 feet, 20 feet, nothing in the next place, but for mining it wasn't a good proposition at all. But we had to carry on with it because there wasn't much left in the town. But when the steam trains went off the road, well, there wasn't such a great use for black coal. They were using it for household, even taking some of it over to Yallorn to mix with the briquettes, but it wasn't a viable proposition and the Government didn't believe in going into the markets you know, so that's why Kirrak eventually, it was the last mine to finish…..

The ventilation in the mine, the idea, the general idea is you take a heading forward, two headings go together, and when you get to a 100 feet, it's usually a 100 feet, you put another drive through to the back heading, that's the return air, there's two shafts, so you got a main intake and a return exhaust fan. And every 100 feet you go through, this is how you progress, but when you get out into the workings further, naturally the air gets slacker, and you've got to keep your air up to the face, that's where the men get all the ventilation naturally and it keeps clear the smoke from explosions and all the other gases your likely to strike in a mine. And, but in Kirrak particularly, I think they were trying to be a penny wise and a pound foolish, whatever the saying is, and the intakes, the main intakes were smaller than the returns, the main intakes sorry, erase that, were wider, bigger than what the returns were, and therefore you don't get a good ventilation and this is where it was neglected, as far as 1'm concerned Kirrak, this is what happened to Kirrak, that they never bothered to repair a lot of the ventilation, the return airways because out of sight out of mind type of thing, but they went ahead and the further out they went the warmer the situation got because humidity there was pretty high and to work under high humidity, it's very distressing to a miner cause naturally he loses a lot of perspiration and the horses have got to work in it too. And but when it gets to a certain saturation point which didn't really get in Kirrak, but it was, it wasn't nice to work in, it was very depressing, and this took awhile after the mine opened up to get out to that stage. But that's about what happened in Kirrak, and I think this happened in other pits too eventually, you know that they did not keep the air ventilation open. Other than that, there's still a fair bit of Kirrak coal left in Kirrak, but it wasn't, to go down 1200 feet it wasn't a practice and viable proposition for the mine, so they closed it down. You know the story, they, about 58 to 88, they closed the books, no one was to be employed and when the mines finished, I think there was only a 120 men including staff and the miners were left in the mine. So it wasn't a big calamity as they thought when they were going to close the mine because employed, in fact I had in my team, I had about 10 or 12 more at different times and when I was left I had to go back on the tools splicing and whatever to keep things going because to keep things I was the only one, who could do the job, in fact I wasn't game to stop home in case something happened, but anyhow the mines closed and that was it.

Q Remember any funny stories?

Let me think, no just off hand I can't just ring the mind, such as what, anywhere? Well, this was a well known story, but I'll repeat it and the chappy that it happened with, out at Western Area it was, there was a chap named Tullio Muresco, you might of heard of him, and Tullio in those days he wasn't married, he used to be a boy about town, he was a clipper, that is clippin on a rope and he said to me, I was a wheeler in those days tool he came over, he said, "How can I get a day off, I want to go to a ball tonight, what can I do?" I says, "put your finger under a skip, it's as simple as that." He said, "Do you think it would hurt?" He said, "A full one or an empty?" I said, "Well start off with an empty." I thought he was kidding. So there was another chap there called Paddy Bennis, he had a fiery little pony and he used to pull in quite a few skips at a time, it was flat workins, he said to Paddy, "How do you reckon I could get a night off Pat", and he says put your finger under a skip, he said the same thing. But he said, "I'll tell you what to do Tullio, put a bit of string around it and tie it tight", he said "..and then put your finger under it and it won't hurt." So Paddy never thought anything more about it, he helped him with a bit of string and the next thing you hear a scream from behind. And Tuilto says, "Just take this bloody string off quick", and he's chasing him down, it flattened his finger, I think he had 5 or 6 weeks off instead of a night, there were some funny things.

Q Lost the top of his finger did he?

I think it flattened it, but you'd have to know Tullio to know what it was all about, he was a rough diamond. There was another chappy, there used to be an old horse called Girly, a real old mare and she was pretty slow, her legs, you, you couldn't bend her legs, but there's a place there, what they call a return wheel for a jig, a jig is an endless jig and there's a 4 foot wheel at the bottom and of course the bearers, it was a low situation you see, and the old horse, and some of them could get right down and nearly crawl under these things, but old Girly was out in the paddock over the all weekend you know and the nice fresh clover, this green grass and everything else. And Jimmy Darg was the wheeler, and Jimmy was, whenever they're going up they hang on to the horses tail and eventually come out of the tunnel and anyhow Jimmy had hold of old Girly's tail and she was struggling to get under this beam, it was just too much for her and she let go, well Jimmy was covered in shit from head to toe. All you could see was a pair of eyes looking and he went home. A lot of funny things actually happened. The old horse you know, he'd go and get your crib bag down, he'd get your crib out and eat it no trouble at all, they were very clever horses in the mine you know, they never used reins, only initially they used the reigns, but they know to gee-off, come here, they know right to left and pull back and they were pretty clever and you'd get a good horse, he'd push as many skips with his collar than what he would pull you know on flats.

Q Any close accidents?

Yeah as a matter of fact I had one, I've had more than one. When 18 shaft finished over there, well had a, the idea was, we had to, that's when Eastern Area finished too, the whole lot finished, 18 was the other end of Inverloch road and the coal used to come out at Eastern Area and the men went down 18 shaft. But East Area, 18 shaft was finished, we had to get the cables out, for the copper mainly, you know the cables and anything that was of any value. So this night I had a chappy working with me, but the shaft was in a hell of a state, the runs, you'd be climbing up the runs on the ladder and the ladders in the shaft come in stages, about 20 foot stages, you know there's a stage and another 20 foot ladder and a stage. And as you'd be going up these ladders the runs fell out from under your feet, it wasn't a very nice situation. But we were there this night, and besides in an air shaft the timber rots quick you know, because it's a ventilation shaft and, getting all the bad air timber doesn't last very long and that's why the ladders were falling apart because it's only dowelled into either side, this steel step. So this night we come from the bottom up and we were chopping this, the way the cable was on the shaft is in boxes about 18 inches there was a centre down it and they clamped together and it's bolted onto the side of the shaft and it holds the table and they go up to the next landing and put another one, but what we were doing were chopping them off, just knocking both nuts off, undoing the box and sticking, putting them somewhere out of the road. But you're out in the middle of the shaft on two 4 by 3's, cause where there's a pipe column, there's two 4 by 3's they put a clamp on the pipe and that's, these 4 by 3's hold them. And we were only standing on them, well I was anyhow because the chappy I had was on this landing and had done all the shaft work outside. This night we were coming up and I, we had the winding rope threaded down if you can follow, took it off the cage and we had it threaded down so when we tied it on we would lash it onto the cables with a lashing and left them in. And this night we were coming from the bottom up again, and we were doing pretty well, the mud and the filth was falling, oh gee it was a stinking job, so I never used to have a safety belt or rope, anything tied onto me which you should have, I was just a bit lazy. But this was just two lashings at this particular stage so I lashed myself on for some reason and I pulled the rope and don't remember another thing, we were 18 ladders from home, or 20 feet and what had happened, I had dislodged one of these boxes and it had come down, hit me on the head, flattened me hat, smashed head, broke my big toe of all toes and went through, and I don't remember a thing, all I remember I was on the surface when I came to, you know blood and the ambulance there, the blood and this business. It wasn't bad, serious, but I was completely knocked out and this chap I was with he said, "I pulled you in" he said, "What will I do, I'll go for help." And he said, "You said to me like bloody hell you will, I'm coming with you", he said, "I couldn't catch you". I went all the way up that shaft, got into the office before I come to. And if I hadn't have had that stage, that lashing on I would have been gone, for sure. Cause I suppose I was 3 or 4 hundred feet from home down this way, but I tell you what, I never missed out in anything in the mines, I was in the fires, in whatever

Q Rock falls?

That was another goody, I told Joe Chambers about that too on the tape. A good example, this wheeler coming down in 18 shaft when the workings was going….. This is a horse, a wheeler in 18 shaft and he was coming down the back heading and normally a wheeler sits on the front buff of the skip and the horse is infront of the skip. And anyhow, it was afternoon shift and this wheeler comes running out this day, he said, "My horse is buried, there's been a fall of stone." So we went in, so I shot in first up and there was a great heap of stone, a fall, a big fall, you couldn't see the skip, but all you could hear was a gurgling from underneath this great heap of stone and it was still coming down, it was pretty hazardous you know, it was still falling all around us, or around me. So I started digging like hell with my hands and this bloke named Sammy Nelson, who was a boss pumper, that's the bloke who looks after the pumps, the electrical work underground, he come along, between the two of us we were digging and digging and digging towards this noise and the miners were coming out, they just stood and watched us, none of them were game to come underneath and we were digging, still digging and found out where the noise was and there's the horse, and swindle tree he's got across his neck, that's a bit of timber. So it took hours to dig him out, by this time hands were, I was, my fingers were worn out and so anyhow the vet came down there, the stable foreman, he's the vet and so, Nobby Smith's his name, and he came down and we eventually got the horse up, it was like a drunken sailor, it was knocked about and he was going to shoot it, and old Sammy said, "Like bloody hell you'll shoot it" he said, "You'll shoot me before you shoot that bloody horse." And anyhow we got the old horse standing up, it took one either side and we led him up to the shaft, as he would fall one way we would push him the other way, we got him up and about a week or so after he was fit to come back to work again. He was a beautiful little horse, but still, he was completely buried, he should have been dead and he was going to be shot, but we wouldn't have that, not after digging him out. Oh there's been some big falls, one time there was another fall down in 18 shaft where one chappy was buried and killed, two were killed actually. But the wheeler that was wheeling to him, on a night shift it was, he just got, he run and it just clipped his ankles as he went out. And they were digging, one chappy there was just caught pinned and they couldn't get to him and he was screaming, Charles I think his name was and they tried to get him out and they got as far as him, and I think a doctor came down, they got as far as they could , but they couldn't get him, I think the fall just took place after and I think he died more or less of fright, it's not a nice sensation, but I think his name was Charles, Dick Uhren and Charles, they were caught down there, that's in 18 shaft. There's been a lot of that type of thing, but another chap, his name was Whitey, he was going into a bord…….they take the coal out as you know, then they just with the width of the drive and when they're going to fire the top brushing down to make room so the skip could go further forward, they put a line of cutters in, it's like little props and they fire it down so it will brake off neat. And apparently this Whitey, he was putting these cutters in or was about to put them in and he climbed underneath the low seam to put them in or take them, whatever he was doing, and the whole thing slipped out on him, just one big block of stone, just flattened him, just slipped out on slips, you know like there's, sometimes you get a slip in them, more or less a fault in the strata, and where he had put his props in either side he hadn't caught up this big V" piece, it just fell out on him. Oh there was a bit of that about, but there was a lot of men killed in the mine, but in the later years I don't think there was any, you know in Kirrak era I don't think there was any fatalities at all, injuries but not so many fatalities, if any. But early in the piece there was quite a lot, that's with the explosions, and falls………

END OF INTERVIEW
Date: September 1988