'Black Gold, Kindred Spirits'

Q. What caused the strike just before 20 shaft explosion?

It was called originally when there was, one of the boys was asked to do something which he thought was unsafe, he wasn't going to work. And the other fellow was asked to take over and he refused to do it, and the other boy done the same, they ask him and he wouldn't do it. And the man who was in charge of those boys, the senior man, was asked to do it and he refused and they were sacked, or sent home. And that was the start of that dispute and that's why the mines were off at that particular time. A stop work meeting was called on the Monday to decide, to decide what was going to, what action would be taken in regard to the, the dispute. And while that meeting was in progress, or to be in progress, the mine went up, there was an explosion. The meeting was forgotten, all what it was all about was forgotten when the disaster happened and the people, you might say all the men and women made straight out to the mine, to see what could be done or what help could do in any way possible. And when they got there of course, everything was in chaos, the cage had been thrown up the shaft, and the other one was blown up the bottom and they couldn't do nothing till that was rectified, or make it in working order because, in case there was any men down below there's no hope of getting down there unless the cage was in working order. So…..

Q Do you remember the morning when it happened?

Well, I happened to be, we was away for the weekend, down the Tarwin fishing and we were having breakfast, next morning, and we heard, that the publican told us that there was an explosion in Wonthaggi and one particular fellow had been killed that we all knew pretty well, but we knew them all. So we packed up our things as quick as we could and proceeded to Wonthaggi……..I went to the mine, well I was in the Rescue Brigade, it was my responsibility to be there, I'm one of 24 I might say, but they were all there that thought they could be, of help. And they just stood around and just upset about the whole thing and not knowing what to do, but George Lees was the leader of the Rescue team, so he sorted us out into different teams and prepared us in our shifts to go below to see what could be done.

Q Were you shocked that it happened?

No, they were more or less upset about what happened at that particular time, they were really worried about the men down below. I'm sure 90%, if it was possible, would have went below if they thought there was any chance of getting those people out alive. But most of us thought, knew that the worst had happened.

Q What was it like when you first went down the mine shaft and saw the destruction? What did you see?

Well, I got in the cage, we were 2 gangs per shift, see we had a rotation of shifts of 8 hours and we had 2 gangs per shift. So we got in the cages we went down 700ft, which we had to go down very carefully, we didn't know what damage was done to the shaft or the cages, they had to be careful what they done, they just went down steady. We got no idea what was going to confront us when we got down there. When we got there, there was, everything was sootted up, dust had been exploded around everywhere, full skips was tossed about on top of one another, rails had been bent and some of the timber was dislodged. And rocks, small fall here and there, around the shaft, but there wasn't many big falls around the shaft bottom.

Q What was the feeling at the pithead?

Well, all the mothers, all the wives, children, they were appalled. They didn't know what to expect, but they wasn't accepting that they were dead, they wanted to get the men down to find out, and we also wanted to get down as quick as we could to find out if there was any possibility of any of those being found alive which we doubted from the start. But the people were just well, really upset, nobody could believe, it didn't sink in properly then that such a thing had happened.

Q What was your job as part of the rescue team?

Well, I was one of 4, and we went in our particular party, well all the crew had more or less the same job to do. We had to go in and make it safe for those people that never had the rescue apparatus to wear, make it safe for them to cone in and do any following work, but we had to make sure that that was safe as far as gas was concerned and any other business concerned as far as timber down, bad roof or something else, we had to get that sort of semi-safe you, might say. And the people that followed us depended on us that they were going to come into a safe situation as possible, but nobody could swear that that was going to stay as it was. But every precaution was taken that there be no lights, no sparks, or no thing that could ignite it again. That was our primary position was to make it safe for those who followed on to do the repair work.

Q Was the presence of gas dangerous?

Well, it's carbide monoxide, it's mixed with carbide methane gas, if it come to any extent again it could come into an explosion again. So we had to be careful, that there'd be no lights whatever, nobody was allowed cigarettes or matches or anything of electrical nature to come below. Although the safety lights we had were sealed, they were safety lights from the Mines Department.

Q What caused the explosion?

Well, I think the examiner miscalculated over a weekend, a long weekend, there'd been 3 or 4 days off work. And he miscalculated to the extent of a build up of gas since he previously examined it. Where he probably had his examination, was 20 feet further on to where he found the gas the previous time, the gas had built up 20 feet outwards that he probably miscalculated what build up, was going to occur. And, I think that would cover it pretty right, he miscalculated how much build up had been.

Q Where does the miscalculation lie?

Well, it's the examiner, that's his specific job is to examine for presence of gas and he's got to find out, and he's got, he's got a Leny light which is a where you test for gas and you can tell what gas is present and pretty well how much, what quantity's there. So he's got that there and at that particular time he only had a naked light to that point, then he dropped his light and he'd go into where he his, upon his last date, where he had examined the previous date and that was clear then. And I think he walked in there with his light, his lamp on where the gas was come down below at that particular point.

Q Was there a chance of a second explosion?

Yes there could have been a secondary explosion under certain circumstances, which was unlikely. One of the reasons may be a big fall, might force out poisonous gasses out into our previously safe places.

Q Why were there so many strikes in Wonthaggi?

Well, one of the reasons was that the mine was brought into being in the first place for coal against the assurance against strikes in New South Wales. But that don't come to the point of strikes, where it was, the Government of the day give control, complete control to the Railway Commissioners, who ran the State Mine for their own benefit and just for the benefit of the Railways, not for anybody else, but their own sole interest. So therefore, whenever there was a requirement of trucks for any other way, such as wheat, you may depend that every February we'd have a six to seven week strike brought on by victimization or some other, or some other things that the miners would not put up with, so all they had was to strike. Once that strike was over and they'd got all the wheat in, we'd win our point, but also the Commissioners won their point, they got the wheat in from the harvest. So the mine went on from then on as if nothing had happened as far as the management's concerned, but we lost 6 or 7 weeks work. And that was one of the reasons, but, the Commissioners, if they want any trouble at all, too much over production of coal they'd create a false strike. Which they would create and yet the miners were blamed for all the strikes that happened in Wonthaggi, yet it was forced on us. And I think you come to the next point what do you think of McLeish Well, McLeish he was the prime mover of these strikes, he was a complete pervert of the Commissioners. And he delighted in doing what he did and he got very disliked in Wonthaggi and when he retired and left Wonthaggi there wasn't one, that wasn't happy when he went, he was demoted and lost everything after he left Wonthaggi. And the people, I never heard anybody say that they like John McLeish, the only people he would have got some acknowledge from was his cronies and they were frightened to say anything else but, but yes Mr. McLeish. I think that covers Mr. McLeish. I don't know if I said it too tough or not?

Where do I go back to? Just breaking in now, the explosion was just a little part of my life in the mines, from 14 till 1961, I worked in the mine in various jobs. I started on as a brace boy, 3/6 a day, and when at 17 you become a senior boy you went below and I think you got about 9 bob a day. Then as you progressed, or promoted as you might say, you become a wheeler and you got another 5 or 6 bob a day. And then if you wanted to, you could try to get on the coal, where somebody, you'd get your father or somebody else senior, take you on the coal and where you worked on the contract system and you might make a pound a day if you got a good bord. My life, I done those things up that point, then I become a roadman which was laying the rails into the mine, miners. Then I went back on the coal again and I worked on the coal then till the explosion which I've just been through. Then after the explosion I went on what they call shot firing, where all the shots had to be electrically fired from that point because it become a safety mine after the explosion. And after a couple of years on that, I, still progressing or perhaps not so much, still doing something, I became a rope-splicer. And I kept on that job till I was....I retired. And a lot of those jobs particularly during the war, you'd be called out anytime of the night, I used to work Saturday's and Sunday's, rope-splicing was also what they call a maintenance term, any trouble, you were on call. I've seen me go to afternoon shift at 4 o'clock and a breakage would occur and I'd come home 9 o'clock the next day, we'd have a little break for lunch and then...... many times I'd came home at 9 o'clock, I had have the breakfast on the table and I'd fall asleep on top of my breakfast. I'd go to bed, and I'd be in bed 2 hours and I'd wake up like chirping, couldn't sleep, over tired, you don't know what to do. And that was a part of the rope-splicing job, you were on call, you never knew when you were going to be called out. People might'in know about the Lizzy, but it's the big stone truck, that empties the stone up on the big dumps, which later on as they got built up and built up they caught fire. And all those stones, red stones as they call it made half the roads of Wonthaggi, because they became heated and good gravel and the foundations for roads were all sorts of things. The other, what's something else..…...... When I first came to Wonthaggi too…….I was a pretty interesting sort of a kid and when I went to get my job, I went over to the mine and I seen Mr. McLeish, the first time, I think, in his life he was sorry for me or anybody when he seen me a little bloke about 2 foot 1 tall walk in looking for a job. What do you want? I want a job please Mr.McLeish, what, you should be going to school! But I said I've got to help my people, they've got a lot of children to run and I want to help them, but any case there was no more school to go to because that was the end of it when you turned 14 there's no more other schools to go to, nothing. Anyhow, he says, right oh, he wrote me a note out, he says right, start now. I didn't know what to do, I was shocked. Walked down to 5 brace and on the bottom was a 50 foot stairway up, "no admittance except on business". I was frightened to go up, I wasn't allowed, I didn't know what I was going to see so I went home and my father was day shift that time and he said never mind he says I'll take you back tonight and introduce you to the boss and show you around a bit and we can go start work tomorrow. And so I went over there and I seen these, took me to the mine and introduced me to the boss and all these boys around, there was 33 boys and men working on that brace at that particular time as it was the central brace of all the mines, all the coal come into there, to be sent away to the Railways. So next day I go to work with my crib under my arm, had a big bottle of tea or a billy, I'm not sure which. And I get on the brace and all the boys were singing out, I didn't know one, I didn't know anybody. What about swapping us, what about a relieve, what about a relieve, what about a relieve. I didn't know what they was talking about. So anyhow, I looked around and so they said to me, the boss said, he said you go around No.3 topper and take the tokens off the boy, help the boy behind the tokens and there was two of us, about 2 foot 1 each taking tokens off, we couldn't lift the skip on, it was only on a level floor. But prior to that all the boys was initiated on the brace, they got "greased". You can imagine what the initiation was, but you had to fight it or take it, and most of them took it, if you was fast you could run for awhile but eventually they caught you and you got greased. One of your initiations, they made it more gentle, they used to use a oil can, that was a part of my bringing up on the brace. There was the usual fights and my brother Gordon and another fellow named Looden McGlocklan, they had a fight there onetime and nobody knew who won but it was a real good fight. In later years Looden McGlocklan went on to be a professional boxer and my brother Gordon Kiely became the middle-weight champion of Australia. He beat Merv Williams in about 1926, I think it was, he became the Australian, middle-weight champion of Australia. He also fought and beat Jack Caroll up in Wonthaggi and he also fought many fights in the stadium and the Fitzroy stadium, and he always used to, once a year I think he used to travel with Johns or Pats, somebody, I forget the other bloke. He done all those jobs and he got killed a few years ago through going home from school or work or something, and my other brother he was put off at 21, he went to Melbourne and he got a job down there in one of the electric shops and he played a few games with South Melbourne Seconds. Will I tell you the story about the old man? You want that? Well, my old man, he was an old miner from Tassy, of course I'm a Tasmanian, I want to let you know that. He came over here looking for work, the other mines were all closed in Tasmania and he got a job and he was in 2 big accidents in the mine, the top fell in on him in No.9 and he was in hospital for I don't know how long, but eventually he started to come out of it and they give him a light job, they give him a job a greaser, that was greasing the railways on the endless haulage's. And one of these haulage's there's a long one of these haulage's in McBride Tunnel, the skips got away, and he thought they were on the empty side, but they were on the full side and he got in between the skips and they smashed his leg and he got his leg off. So he was in a bad state of health for many years, but the point I want to come to is where he, he got so much a week, cause they wanted to buy more, for, less than his compensation was, so he got his 2 pound 8 a week, which was a married mans pension and he got 12 bob a week old age pension. So he used to raffle a goose, my mother used to raise geese down around South Dudley, he raffled a goose every Christmas for his pocket money and there's a lot of people that would swear to this day that he raffled that goose, 20 years it was the same goose. But I can assure you it was a winner everytime, but it just shows the times that were, that the old people had a battle, we all had a battle, but we made the best of it in our own ways. During the big strikes they got what they call the Broad Committee, the men created shops, they had butcher shops, the farmers good around the district, they helped us out, potatoes, vege's, milk and meat, though it wouldn't be, the best of meat, but we would get meat. There was some butchers, they had some exbutchers, all kinds, hair cutting, that's when I first became a hair dresser during the strike. Also in that period when I was a kid, can I go back a bit again? I was a cadet, you want to hear this one, you've heard it, you want to hear it? Well I was a cadet after 17 you become a cadet, it, was compulsory drills and……

Well, we left Tasmania in October 1914 and we arrived in Melbourne and there was all cable trams around the place, all cable trams and we were taken up to a person's place and stopped there over the weekend and we caught the train to Wonthaggi, a steam train and met a fellow there named George Tarriff and he give me a lot of low down of the town. When we got to Kilcunda, the train, at that time the railway station was right on the beach, on a rough night the water was spraying up over the station. And we got into Wonthaggi about 9 o'clock at night and we walked, had to walk right up through the town, the impression was a half finished town, it was only half built. And we walked up through the place, there was a lot of spare paddocks we had to go through to get to the place we had to go. And we stopped with our relations overnight and then we went to Hicksborough which was 3 miles, that was the house we had. And we got a real, great big drag, I don't know if you know what a drag is but it's a two horse double-storey buggy. A heavy machine, a real heavy job. And we took what furniture we had and what things we had out to Hicksborough where the house was and then we had to order what we never brought with us, we had to make a new home, 3 miles from nowhere, we had 2 neighbours and the nearest other neighbour would be half a mile away and 3 miles from the town. So we stopped there till we shifted to South Dudley, but I used to walk from there to school until Christmas time……then we went to Dudley school and we were there until I had to leave school. And then we shifted to South Dudley and that's another little town to itself, it's self contained and I lived there for many many years until I got married later in life and that's where we were brought up in, oh well, you might say it was a community, we had good football, some played League football, we had cricket, we had tennis and wherever we where we were compact and the Wonthaggi people were a bit envious that we stick together, we could hold our own against Wonthaggi and we got a lot of players, a lot of the football players come down and played with us. And at that time from 1916 - 1920 around that time, if you wanted to go to the pictures in the night time you had to walk up the middle of the road to the hotel and cross onto the railway line, and walk up the railway line because South Dudley was marooned by road for that few months of winter, of course it was absolutely knee high in mud from the town to South Dudley. So we had to walk, in summer time, in dry weather we had the horse and cart or jinkers, some rode the ponies, drive to the town, there used to be a big stables you might term it where they stabled for the night till the pictures come out. Then going home there'd be nat cars flying around, but horses and jinkers going all directions going back home after their night out. And at that time South Dudley never had any lights, you had no water, we only had tank water and candles or lamps. But we never got our lights till later on, we never got water till after the war. But of course South Dudley is built on coal, there's a lot of coal underneath it and they thought at one time of shifting it away, shift all the houses which they did at Dudley and getting all that coal out, but as time went on the coal became less economical and the gas, the gas up at Yallorn come here and they got the gas there and they didn't need the coal so much so they let it lapse. So South Dudley's rejuvenated now, it's a new little town down there, yet it was condemned to die in the 1930's.

Well I played, we all as kids, we have, the boys all got together because it was a young town. And there was about 17 or 18 boarding houses here and all young people, single men and the Railways at that time had getting the coal away, they used to go 3000 tons a day they were producing and they had 13 crews of Railway enginemen and drivers. And most of them boarded at South Dudley, they had boarding houses down there just for these railway people and other boarding houses too for other people. And therefore it was a town of real young people and it was fun in those times, there was an element of truth in it that you only got married on a full pay, and there wasn't many full pays, so weddings were far between, but they were more often than that because some were a little bit premature. But the life we went through, we played our football, we brought our own gurnseys for a start and we all had to pay for the umpire, and it was an honour to play for a team, we didn't want any pay we was quite happy to be a player and be in it, and everybody was the same, on the same footing, if they wanted the game they were willing to pay their way. Wonthaggi had a lot of Crown land and wherever the team started they would make a ground for themselves. So we had a lot of grounds, but in the mid-winter they wasn't very good. but it was something to play on and the young people were quite happy about it. During the heydays of the 20's and 30's there was always a boxing match up here on a Saturday morning or a Friday night. And all the best boxers around Australia come up here and fought at different times. And one time we had here about 20 boxers here that could hold their own pretty well anywhere around the place. Well as far as I'm concerned I played football, cricket, tennis and I used to be a real fisherman on weekends too. And then someone introduced me to the game of bowls, my fishing went, everything went bar bowls, so I became a dedicated bowler and my wife still reckons I'm married to the place. But I got more satisfaction out of bowling than any other sport because it's a community game, it's all friendship, it's competitive as well but after the game you all get together and you're one group of players, you intermingle, you drink with one another and you have your talk over the game and you go away with a lot of good friendship and I've made more friends around Wonthaggi and the district in particular than is possible to do than any other sport.

Q What was the community spirit in Wonthaggi like?

Well, whenever anything happened because we had to stick together, miners were one out, there was McLeish's crowd, there was the elite as we call them, and they used to group within themselves. They had the Wonthaggi Club, which was, they called it the gentlemen's club and the Workman's Club. And you'd got to be screened pretty closely before you could get into the Wonthaggi Club. If you were outlandish being a real good unionist you wasn't welcome. So, McLeish was one of the dominating factors of who should be in it or not. See McLeish comes into it again, but he had a lot of rule over this town and he made it for better or for worse, he could have made it a real good town, or helped to, I wouldn't say could of, but he could of helped to make it better for the people. But became, he wasn't one of the people, he didn't want to be in that kind of friendship with the ordinary worker. He kept us apart, our place was servants, he was the boss and he let no, any other idea of it being otherwise. So he kept us in our place, but eventually the miners won, he went. And Tom Johnson come on, immediately the relationship between the men and the management altered. And Jimmy Burns in later years, they've both died, both respected in Wonthaggi and well liked all their life. There's lots of other things I could say, if I could quote one. It used to be a funny town our town, our football used to go by rail, the team we played around the district, we went to Glenora, Koo Wee Rup, Loch, Korrumburra, Leongatha, Fish Creek all by train. So anyhow one of these days there was a funny old parson here, the reverend King. He was always likely to turn up anywhere, so this particular day, Wonthaggi team was going down to Koo Wee Rup and down at Anderson in pops the Reverend King in amongst this carriage full of footballers, "Hello boys, where are going today, who are you playing today?" I don't know if I should say this, but this was the words, he said, "Oh Asshole", some would say not a nice way to say bum. But they said that. He sat down quietly, he sat down, "Gees oh" sat down quietly and he got down as far as Nyora and he got out the carriage and he put his head in the carriage and he said, "Boys I hope you give them a good lickin" Whether they licked them or not I don't know, but that was part of the different people that come to Wonthaggi. Well there was lots of them, Gus Cooper he was one of the sprukers, he used to spruker at the pub at the Turvilli one time in Melbourne, but he used to spruker before the picture shows, he was one of the old identities. There was another….of course the Pikey days as well is documented I think that was the gaming house of Wonthaggi. As soon as pay day come they were up there playing two up, they had the billiards and they used to play the two up with the tripney pieces. Till one time word got around and there was the biggest raid ever and they wrecked the place and that was the end of the organised gambling in Wonthaggi. But he used to, Pikey, there was a time when the football team was up here he used to meet the umpires and take them up for dinner at the hotel. But he was interested in one of the other teams and that team always won.

END OF INTERVIEW
Date: September 1988