Malty Main Colliery

Maltby was a deep mine - 900 yards from surface to pit bottom. Going down the first time, crammed into the cage with the miners, was pretty terrifying. The men were hard but their wit and humour softened their edges, and in some coded way they were protective - teasing but reassuring.  We waited as the last man squeezed in, then a bell rang, the mesh gates slammed shut and the cage dropped like a stone, in pitch darkness, shaking and crashing as it descended for what felt like five minutes (on reflection it probably was) nothing but steel mesh between you and rock, fleetingly illuminated by cap lamps. At the pit bottom miners got on to small trains which took them off to different coal faces, sometimes six miles apart. The little train bucketed along wide lit tunnels until it reached its terminus where suddenly there was total darkness. It was a darkness few will have experienced, A complete absence of ambient light. We turned off into what was known as a Gate - a tunnel - the darkness punctuated only by cap lamps and the occasional roof light at intersections. As we got further in the going became more difficult. In places the ground pushed up and the roof partially collapsed, and we had to clamber or crawl over piles of rubble, ducking where jagged pieces of corrugated iron protruded, sometimes squeezing between steel props or baulks of timber. After maybe half an hour the gate opened out into a spectacular chaos of men machines and lights where the coal face and the gate intersected. A huge boring machine called a Dosco was drilling into rock, pushing the gate forward, and men were digging with shovels and pick-axes, laying brick walls, operating machines, crawling between the hydraulic props operating the coal cutter and moving them forward as the coal was cut and channeled away onto the conveyors, the ground crushing in behind the props.
The distances were much greater than I had expected - the particular coalface where I went to draw quite often, 27’s - was three miles from pit-bottom. Occasionally we would ride the coal conveyors - highly dangerous and illegal. My first lesson was pretty hairy. Kevin, a shop steward - little more than a lad - had been delegated to show me around. He decided we would go the quick way. I found myself kneeling on the coal conveyor, clinging on for dear life as it rushed swaying and bumping through the darkness, then suddenly Kevin looked back and shouted “get ready - when we get near that light up ahead - Jump!”. If you got it wrong you’d be mangled.

The men operating machines at the coal face crawled between massive hydraulic pit-props in a space maybe three foot high, usually stripped almost naked, their great hippo-like bodies gleaming black with sweat and coal dust. It was not uncommon for men to wear their wives knickers in the intense heat.
The miners would come through my studio when they came off shift to see what I was doing. Sometimes there would be slightly surreal conversations - a miner would say ‘eh up, good to see you on 27’s' - and I said 'Eh? Did I see you?' - and he’d laughed and say ‘aye you did - we had a chat!’  In the general chaos and blackness I had little idea who I was talking to.

​

Paul Butler 2024