Property News · December 22, 2011

A miner's shift: 'near the face it's hot – up to 38C'


Bob Fitzpatrick has been a miner since 1983. He is a coalface worker at Hatfield colliery, near DoncasterI have been at Hatfield since 2007. Before that I was at Maltby [near Rotherham]. I work Monday to Friday, with occasional weekends. My basic pay is £27,500, so I need to do overtime. I’m trained to work at the coalface and in the headings, which are the tunnels between the faces. Sometimes I’ll be working in the headings operating the machines that cut the coal; other times I could be supplying the heading men with materials such as  mesh and bolts.There are three shifts: days, nights and afters [afternoons]. The day shift is 5.30am till 2pm; afternoons midday till 8.30pm; and nights 7pm till 3.30am. As long as the conveyor belt is running we will be mining. The shift pattern is weekly: days, nights and afternoons. The face is about three miles from the bottom of the shaft. You go on an underground locomotive that takes about 25 minutes from the pit bottom to the locomotive station – what we call the “paddy stop”. Then you walk down the drift – a 1-in-4 incline – for about 300 metres. Then you turn right and walk another 1,800 metres to the face entrance, then turn left and walk another 700 metres to the face itself. Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
Read more…A miner’s shift: ‘near the face it’s hot – up to 38C’

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