'Black Gold, Kindred Spirits'

Q You mentioned before about rock falls?

There was several sayings that we had, but one of the main ones was as you walking along and anything happened the old saying was "you never look up". There was nothing to see but you still never looked up because that was where all your trouble came from.

Q Tell us the story of the police and the money in the '49 Strike?

CHUCKLE That was the time our money was all frozen and we were going to send all our money up to N.S.W. And the money was all on the table at the back of the Union theatre and they we were dividing all up into bags and what not. And they had all look-out out the front of the theatre and he was to keep his eye on for the police if they happened to come at and there was another fellow standing out behind the window where Jock was on the table with all the money and the fellow that was looking for the policemen saw the two policeman come down the street, down McBride Avenue and ah he thought they were going to turn up and come up towards them so he rushed out and said hey get out of it the police are coming you know, and by the time he got back the policemen had gone down the other way so it didn't make much difference so anyway Jock in his haste to get all the money up he jumped up knocked the table over and the money spilt all over the floor and they were all down on their hands and knees scooping it all up and Waxy Rankin he was the bloke outside the window ready to catch the money when they threw out and take off with it. And he was just waiting and waiting but nothing ever eventuated but it was just as well the police went the other way otherwise they might've been caught, but eventually they wrapped it all up and it all got away all right so.

Q What was the cause of the 20 Shaft explosion?

It's only from mouth to mouth sort of thing but it really did happen, we know did happen but you can't prove nothing you know. Sometimes they'd stop the fan of a weekend and start it off again on Monday morning. But ah the place was always examined first before the men went down, which I don't think happened when the deputies went down the time of the explosion, I think they just went down without bothering to examine or anything, because if it'd had been examined I don't see how they possibly missed the gas that was there. So every morning the examiners goes down and it takes about two hours to do the job and there's no-one else allowed down until they come up and give you the all clear to go down. Methane gas is lighter than air is there is a flow of air going through the methane gas will travel with the air, but if there's no air going through well the methane just stops in the one spot and just builds up until someone lets it go.

Q Tell us about the miner killed be the wet transformer?

The business of the wet transformer, it was a mate of mine too, well yeah he was mate of mine him and his brother and I we used to do a lot of fishing together and he used to play football with us too. But ah, the story went around that after he was killed, electrically of course, he, the transformer was removed and taken down to mine workshops and placed in a hot oven affair and all dried out. and everything, but how true it is we don't know, but there again it come from a pretty good source. He picked up the power borer to bore a hole and the minute he pressed the trigger to set it off the shock just went straight through him. You know everything was wet and the power went straight through him.

END OF INTERVIEW
Date: September 1995