We started on the Woodbines and puffed our lives away, watching the activity in the pit yard below us; lying in the soft heather under a blazing sun. We had became bored and walked from the village, away from the smells and the chatter from our mothers as they stood in groups; gossiping under an unusual blue sky. As we watched below while making ourselves dizzy, Pit House throbbed with life. The clash of steel echoed off the coal-blackened buildings dirtied by the decades of clinging coal dust. The nearest building to us was the powder magazine where deputies and shot firers stood in a queue, to collect their quota of detonators and powder for blasting, their black hard hats shone in the sun. The overman with his stick; every now and then using it to make a point to a deputy, who hung his head and stared at the ground, no doubt looking for some divine answer from the tab end which lay between his freshly greased boots.
We lit up again and lay back in the long grass and heather, watching the sparse clouds as they drifted by.
“That one looks like a squirrel with one leg,” Tom observed.
“Ah wonder what it’s like, to fly like that,” somebody else said.
“Ya mean like a squirrel with one leg?”
“ Nor, man! Like the hawk. There, look!”
The hawk wheeled and quivered, dipped and dived, searching, constantly on the move. It froze for a second then with wings folded, it dropped as if shot. Just before it reached the earth its wings opened in a blur. We watched it struggle with something in its beak. The something’s tail twitched a couple of times as it tried to squirm out of the hawk’s beak. Our eyes followed the hawk as it delivered the death-blow while still in flight. The tail trailed under the spotted belly of the hawk like a piece of string in the wind. Both predator and victim became a dot.
The little tank engine puffed and huffed its way along the ridge of the stone heap, pushing trucks before it. When the doors were opened, stone spewed out, creating small avalanches that buried the grass and daisies that stubbornly tried to grow against the onslaught of scree.
Our heads turned as we heard shouts from the pithead and realised that it was the end of a shift. Black men started to emerge from underneath the spinning wheels into the sunlight, some shielding their eyes from the glare. A few of them were already taking their cap lamps off, wrapping the cables around the batteries, ready to place them into their numbered pigeon holes in the lamp cabin. It was the young pitmen who made the most noise. We smiled as they ran among the older ones. They jumped on each other’s backs. One snatched another’s haversack, teasing him with it, swinging it round his head in a wide ark. Eventually the lamp cabin swallowed them up and once again the sounds of the colliery took over. The great wheels turned, then stopped again. More men clattered over the concrete. White men walked the opposite way, towards the brick-lined shaft to start their shift.
Clouds drifted above, along with the containers full of coal on their way to the washery a few miles away. The pylons that supported the steel cable stretched away into the distance, over the green fields, over the lush grass, the cows and sheep below.
Over each road there was a sort of wooden bridge or landing for maintenance work and to prevent spillage.
We decided to follow the pylons to the first road crossing. We climbed the wooden structure. The next road was about half a mile away.
“What about if we jumped on and rode to the next one,” said somebody. My eyes were drawn to a few containers, which somehow had become detached from the cable and lay in the fields, their black cargo spilled on to the grass.
I cursed my cowardice, “What if they come off....like them?” “Then we’ll arl be killed, ya daft sod!...Haway man.!” one of us said.
Joe was the bravest, “See ya on the next one!”
He watched as the container silently glided towards him. Then he ran alongside and leapt on. One by one and container by container we jumped.
It was my turn. I let the first two or three go by, fearful and hesitant. I could hear the lads shouting back at me. The container swayed and pitched on the cable as it came towards me. I ran alongside then threw myself on top of the coal. I tried to grab hold of the hanging bracket and in doing so the movement caused my slight frame to slip backwards over the loose coal. As I saw the edge of the timber flooring get nearer I made a frantic lunge. I caught hold of the bracket, pulling myself into the centre of the container just as it cleared the landing. The container dipped with the weight as it ran over the rollers.
I clung to the bracket with white knuckles, not daring to look up. I heard a shout from one of the lads, “Keep a tight hold when ya come to the pylons, Ron!”
He need not have reminded me.
I approached the pylon. I gripped the bracket even tighter. The container juddered over the rollers. I dared a glance to the next landing. I saw one of the lads alight with his hands held aloft in triumph. I could hardly wait my turn. Another few heart stopping moments then I was standing with the rest of them on the landing.
“Bloody great that! Lets gan to the next one,” some lunatic shouted.
I was pleased to hear Joe’s voice of reason, “Dodgey ower them rollers mind.”
We would certainly have been maimed or worse if the unthinkable happened. Before we could make up our minds somebody had already jumped on a container and was on his way.
So there was no turning back. Bravado overcame fear and like the daft sods we were, we followed suit. I suddenly remembered one of the prayers we mumbled at school as I went over those bloody rollers. It was a relief when I noticed the next landing in the distance.
I was about to breathe properly when the cable slowed to a halt.
We all waited for the rope to start up again but there was only the sound of the wind making a humming noise as it strummed the cable above. I began to realise that we had done some daft stunts, but this was probably the daftest.
Bloody great, swinging in the breeze, twenty or so feet above ground, on top of a load of coal. When I sat up to see what the others were doing the container started to sway like a pendulum and gently bounced up and down. I noticed that the sun had started to dip behind the trees and it was getting cold.
Next to me was Snots. I watched as he prepared to drop from about fifteen feet. He clambered over the side and hung by his fingertips for what seemed a lifetime. When he let go he bounced on the turf, landing on his back. He lay for a few moments then his face lit up into a grin, showing the same set of teeth that was pictured in the dentist’s surgery. That picture said: This picture is of an eleven year-old boy in Bromley, Kent. Look after your teeth!
He must have disturbed the contents of his nasal cavities because he did the classical gesture: a quick sweeping movement with his right hand that left a trail of slime from mid-wrist to fingertips. Why had I not been in his bloody container? Out of all of us, his container happened to be over a kind of hump in the field. Why didn’t God put a hump under my container? I mean everybody would be devastated if owt happened to me! Surely no bugger would miss him and the candle machine on his top lip.
All those useless thoughts ran through my mind as he ran towards me. Young heifers had gathered below to watch my apparent suicide, staring up at me with curious innocence.
I was frightened of anything bigger than a bluebottle so I asked Snots to chase them away before I would attempt the drop. He shooed them from beneath the container, only for them to wander back. It was no good, I had to get down. I looked at Snots and his new-found pals. I saw one of the heifers sniff Snots then cough from the bottom of its hooves. If it had stopped there for a few more seconds its lungs would have collapsed.
“Away man, its nowt....Look at me!” he bawled upwards.
He pushed at one of the heifers. It reacted by lowering its head and pawing the ground.
My little mate said, “Ow man! Ah’m only trying to be friendly.”
I let my legs drape over the side. Gripping the side of the container I let the rest of my body go over the edge till I was hanging by reddened fingertips and white knuckles. I knew that there was no way I could have hauled myself back up, even if I wanted to.
“Away man, Ah’m bloody frozzen!”
It was a typical, caring and sensitive response from my mucky little mate.
I stared at a steel rivet in front of me for a second then let go. I felt the rush of air and crashed into a heap onto the meadow. The heifers scattered. Either it was me or Snots had let off. Although my leg hurt a little, I was OK. I staggered over a dry- stone-wall and joined my comrade. We walked to where Tom was. He too dropped without mishap.
But it was Joe who had the farthest to drop. Looking back I guess Joe’s container was at least twentyfive feet from the ground. We shouted up to him and suggested various ideas. Joe’s container was near a pylon and somebody told him to try and swing by his hands on the cable until he reached the pylon and then climb down to safety. It was a bad idea. I shouted up that the cable was greasy and to stay where he was. It was dusk and getting colder.
“Ah’ll try an’ get to the pylon.”
I screamed up to him, “No! It might start up again!”
Joe shrugged his shoulders. The cold started to affect him. He rubbed his biceps to keep warm. Another half hour and he wouldn’t be able to move. He decided to drop.
I screamed again, “Wait a bit longer!”
But he was already hanging over the edge by his fingertips. We thought the worst. The only thing in his favour was that the meadow was lush and soft.
His skinny frame hung limp and straight, silhouetted against the fading light. He seemed to be waiting for the right moment.
He let go and as if in slow motion he fell to earth. He hit the ground with a thud. He bounced, then rolled over, clutching his legs tightly against his body.
Knowing nothing about first aid, we could only hope for the best. Joe sat up, his face twisted in agony. He gingerly stretched one leg out then the other.
“Help me up, will ya?” he said through gritted teeth.
He even managed a smile. He was helped back across the rolling meadow. We had walked a few hundred yards when we heard a noise. The bloody cable jerked into life and the containers went on their way to the washery. I don’t think bad timing on our part had anything to do with it. I guess that someone had seen us riding the containers and had reported us to the engine house back at the pit and they had switched the power off.
Every time I see Joe I think of the day he had a brush with Mr Eternity. Nowadays, I suppose we would have been forced to go to the hospital for a check-up, but in 1950 we just seemed to heal, like dogs. If someone held a gun to my head to force me to do it again I would tell him to pull the trigger. But I’m sure that’s a sign of old age. Life experience tends to make you more cautious. Like Robin Hood once said: ‘What’s the use of having a life if you don’t risk it every now and then?’
© Ron Gray, 2008
