Kalgoorlie Gold Mine · AditNow Community

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Janeyj
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

12 years ago

Hi,
I have just joined your site, and wondered if anyone can help me find information on an old family friend of my parents.

All I know about him is the following:

Name John or Jock Gray. born abt: 1926 in Scotland.
He was a Coal Miner in and around Bo'ness, West Lothain, Scotland, between 1955-1970.
He was a member of The Pit Rescue Team there, I'm not sure what this entails.

He moved to Australia in 1970, and lived at Doolittle St, Kambalda. 6442. Kalgoorlie, Dundas, WA. His occupation is given as a Miner.

Now this confuses me a little as would a coalminer be employed in a Gold Mine??

He moved back to Scotland after a few years, not sure of dates, but before 1980.

Any information, no matter how small would be a great help, my parents would love to know what became of him.

Yours Jane

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stuey
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

12 years ago

I suppose there are similarities.

Many Cornish went up north to work in Coal mines, with many driving tunnels, timbering and sinking shafts.

I imagine that in the late 20th century, the actual abilities of an individual miner would be quite clear. Whether it be tunneling, timbering, shaft maintenance/sinking, tramming, etc, etc. A lot of these skills are transferable and the sort of experience would vary hugely between various "soft rock" and "hard rock" mines. You can get exceptionally soft "hard rock" mines which require heavy timbering like coal mines.

skippy
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

12 years ago

Hi there
A lot of english miners went out to Oz - Kambalda is a huge nickel mine to the south of Kalgoorlie, with a big town built by the mining company (Western Mining Corp.) I lived out there for 18 years.. If you wanted to find out what he was doing, you might be able to get some info out of WMC Kambalda Operations - I'm sure they have records.. Not much anyone can do to help if he came back here though - electoral records maybe??

Pete

The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth

... but not the Mineral Rights...