There was a chap named John Harvey in South Wales Caving Club; he'd worked for some years in the seventies and maybe early eighties too in one of the Cornish mines (Wheal Jane?) and had been an official of some sort. He had some memorable tales. I remember one he told about drilling at the top of the raise:

The raise was vertical or near vertical and pretty high, being one of a closely spaced pair of raises connected fiarly frequently by inters. After a round John, as the mate, had to shake the chain ladder to dislodge debris, stepping away from the bottom of the raise sharpish, and then put four lengths of steel in his belt, climb the ladder, and insert them in the four holes drilled before the previous day's round. Then he and the driller would retrieve the timbers from the inter a short way down the raise and place them across the steels, and haul the drill up from the inter. One day, whilst drilling, the platform collapsed. The driller, a grat big bloke, had his feet against the foot wall and, as the timbers fell, lunged forward and pressed one hand against john and one against the drill. John remembered incredibly vividly the driller looking carefully at John and the then at the drill, and then very deliberately taking his hand off the still revolving drill which fell down the raise, and placing that hand on John who was pressed so hard against the hanging wall that he couldn't speak. They then manoeuvered themselves to the steel holding the top of the chain ladder and descended for a sit down and smoke.

Yeah, the fun of raising, I can identify with your description, the inters off the raise up near the top, were high up and only round 20ft or so down from the next level above so a fair old drop if you headed south, inters down the bottom although not as high would also hurt pretty bad if you fell down the raise from them, inters were a pig to muck out using a barrow, lots of scraped knuckles...

Lozz.

please sir can i have some more,stunning lozz 😉 .

please sir can i have some more,stunning lozz 😉 .

Can't remember anymore, if I do I will post.

Lozz.

Hi Lozz,
You may not see this as I know you wrote this years ago but “Puff” was my great grandfather. It’s so lovely reading these stories! Thank you for sharing!
Kayleigh

While working at Crofty with Sam Leach making alterations to the concentrator house, a couple of his guys were working above the tables fitting some steelwork to take a cyclone.
We were just about to jump in the van to go home when one of Sam’s men came running across the yard. “there’s a problem Sam, you’d better come and see”.
When we arrived, it was hard not to notice a 6 foot length of RSJ poking out the top of a shaker table, and being waved about like flag.
Something had slipped when they were fitting it and it had dropped for a height of about 20 feet, impaling the unfortunate table.
The mill manager was not amused, whereas Sam thought it was hilarious.
The table was had to be disconnected from the drive and the RSJ removed, all by hand as this table was in amongst a group of about 12, so there was no way we could get a forklift in to heave things out.
The table was then unbolted from the myriad of flexible suspension couplings underneath. Not a nice job as the floor was soaking wet and there was limited height to work beneath.
Time was of the essence, and as we worked, another table was being prepared as a replacement.
Those tables must weigh the best part of half a ton, and it took 15 of us to lift it out and pass it over the adjacent ones that were still operating.
We knocked off around 11.30, wet and knackered, and Sam had had the foresight to phone his local pub, The Sparnon Gate, wher food and beer was waiting for us.
We staggered out there at 1.00am and Sam dropped me back home in Portreath.
We started work the next day at 7.30. Hard work, always interesting and often challenging, but most of all enjoyable.
Sam bought drinks for everyone after work every evening. A generous guy and a bloody good engineer.
Having said that, he bought a forklift from Crofty which had been sat rusting in the yard for god knows how long. I don’t think he paid much more than scrap for it.
We were using it to lift steel beams to extend a floor for more tables, and not only was it was a pig to drive, but the seals in the lift hydraulics were all shot, which meant you had to lift the beam a couple of feet higher than you needed, and be prepared either end with drifts to whack into the bolt holes as the beam descended on the leaky rams.
It was mechanical wreck that got worse the more you used it. It was bad enough when the hydraulic oil was cold, but once it had done a few lifts and the oil warmed up, it was close to dangerous.
Happy days though.

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More South Crofty Recollections.

I remember.....


…..Hey ho.

That's about it folks, South Crofty Mine eh, I salute all that worked down there and those who are trying to bring back mining to that area.

Lozz.

I missed these when first posted up 6 years ago....
Totally brilliant, fascinating reading and I agree they should be in a book.
I have loads of funny old stories from various places I have worked and all the characters met along the way; I never seem to remember the stories of have any spare time to write them down :(
Well done Lozz for recording them for posterity and written down in such a way that you can almost see it :thumbup:

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Excellent Lozz. Brilliantly written.

I only ventured down Crofty a couple of times but I spent a lot more time down a copper and gold mine in Oz and yet nearly all the techniques (and terms) were the same.

Rick