Memories of South Garesfield
Lawrence Gosling
Lawrence spent his first few months at the pit working at the screens, sorting the stones from the coal; “At the end of the shift all the stones had to be put back on the belt, loaded back into tubs and were taken off by a pony to be dumped on the stone heaps.”
At the screens Lawrence recalls there were other young lads who were just starting out like himself, along with a few older or infirm men; he remembers working alongside a man who'd lost an arm and whose job was to remove the tokens from the tubs. "There was work for everyone at the pit". |
One advantage for the men and boys who worked on the surface at Friarside during Lawrence’s time, was that they got to eat at the pit canteen located just across from the screens. “Meals were cooked and served by Nancy Carter, a neighbour from the Bottoms”, recalls Lawrence. |
From the screens, Lawrence soon got to go underground, a move most young lads looked forward too as this meant the chance of earing better money.
Assigned to the 'Vic' (Victoria) seam, accessed right down by the river Derwent, he first worked as a pony driver then a hand putter, taking the full tubs out to the landing and returning the empties back to the men hewing at the coal face. Well over 6ft tall, not an ideal height for a miner, Lawrence recalls the Vic seam being no more than 14 inches in some places and remembers the many a knock he took to his back when moving around bent double in the lower seams – and how this would bring tears to his eyes. At Friarside there was just one shift from eight to four. |
After seven or eight years at Friarside Lawrence moved to nearby Barcus Close where the seams were a better height to work, and after the usual two or three years as a pony putter there, Lawrence was in line for a hewer's job. Facilities weren't bad at Barcus Close. Lawrence recalls that there were pit-head showers there, whereas at Friarside they were still lacking when he left in the late fifties. Work clothes weren't provided in Lawrence's day; “You kept your old clothes for work - no safety helmets then - we wore a cap and had a carbine lamp - if you were hand putting you'd attach it to your cap and if you were pony putting you'd just keep it in your hand”.