Читать книгу A Life of Pride - Alan G Pride - Страница 15

At high school I went into ‘technical lessons’ which were divided into boys’ and girls’ classes. There were tech studies – metalwork, woodwork and mechanical drawing, which boys did; or commercial topics like typing and business studies, which the girls did. The English, drama and cultural stream of school didn’t interest me; I was mad about engines.

Dad would have liked me to go to university, which he hadn’t been able to do himself, but I just wasn’t academically inclined. One good thing about him was, he never wanted to skimp on education – he paid for Audrey to learn dress-making and Gloria to train as a hairdresser. When it became clear that I didn’t want to go to uni, he arranged a fitters and turners apprenticeship for me at the mine. I left school as soon as I turned 15.

I had a few spare months between finishing school and starting the apprenticeship proper, so I was put into the mine’s engineering storeroom where everyone went for supplies and tools. The Zinc Corporation ran the place like a self- contained industrial city, with departments providing everything the mines and their employees might need. There were laboratories, drawing offices, an ambulance room , the swimming pool and gym, even an orchestra, sports oval and tennis courts.

The engineering storeroom was a great introduction, as I saw from behind the counter what each department needed: machinery, workshops, pattern makers, painters, timber workers, all signed the book for their pre-requisites and I would dispense them. Sometimes a whole truck had to be filled. All this before starting my apprenticeship!

A cartoon I drew of my work mates at this time.

So the next part of the story takes place from 1946 to 1951, the five years of my training. I’d be working mostly on machines underground during weekdays, going to a technical college five nights a week, then studying tech-drawing on Saturday mornings.

Broken Hill is, as I said, first and foremost a mining town. Seen from the air, the most striking feature is the ‘Line of Lode’, the huge tailings dump left over from the ore extraction process. It runs from the North Mine at one end, to the South at the other. Alongside the Line of Lode is Broken Hill town, set out on the great plain with all the streets in a grid pattern following the points of the compass.

The mines’ centrepoint was the main shaft, taking the men underground to extract the ore. Next to it was another shaft, taking the skips down to carry the ore to the surface. Over the shafts stood the poppet-heads, 25 metre- tall frames; one tower held 4 huge wheels which moved the cables, lifting the miner’s cages up and down, while the smaller tower’s two wheels moved the linked skips up and down. Ore would be dug out on various levels underground and dropped down to a central collection point under the skip tower, to be lifted to the surface. There, the skips would tip tons of ore into a crusher, which could break rocks the size of a small house into pieces for further processing.

As the workers came up from underground, they had a short walk to the office block with its ‘battery room’. Miners, fitters, electricians, all hung up their waterproof coats and hardhats and put their light’s batteries on recharge. Then to the change room, with their individual lockers with their names printed on them and their street clothes inside. They’d take a towel out of the lockers, hang up their dirty work clothes and go into the big communal shower room next door. This was completely tiled, with no individual taps, just an array of preset shower roses spraying from all directions over the dirty workers.

Poppet Heads, change room on left, crusher on right.

The miners could then get dressed and go home, maybe stopping for a ‘pie floater’ (pie in pea soup) from the hot food cart out in the street, or for a game of two-up (the Australian coin-tossing gambling game) at a tin shack behind the shops.

The mine tunnels covered a huge area, the two main shafts going all the way down to (I think) Level 30, thousands of metres underground. Each level was 30 metres below the one above and spread several kilometres from the main shaft. Water drained down from each level to the bottom of Level 30 : a lot of the machinery that far down was for pumping the water up, to a dam near the mines.

Miners would be lowered down to their work level in the cages. They’d drill into the rock faces using water-cooled drills, and at the end of their shifts pull the drills out and pack the holes with explosives. Fuses were set and when everyone was safely out, the explosives would be set off, blowing a whole new layer out of the rock face. Then the next crew would gather the shattered ore and push it down to the bottom of the shaft, for transfer to the surface.

I didn’t go down to Level 30 at first. I started my apprenticeship proper up in the machine shop, repairing and servicing various bits of equipment. Some of it was pretty simple stuff like repairing shovels and picks – not very demanding, and I got bored with it quickly.

But then I was moved on to more complicated work with the pneumatic drills used to break up the ore. These were like big-handled chisels powered by compressed air, which would slam back and forth to crack up the rock. They were very noisy to operate and service and in those days we had very little protective gear. Boots, maybe a visor to stop sparks, and of course helmets with battery-powered light. Not much thought of hearing protection or dust masks - one reason I now have deafness, tinnitus and some lung damage.

I also repaired the drill bits used to bore holes for the explosives. These wore out quickly, so I’d have to put the bit into the furnace, heat it up to white heat and then re-hammer and angle-grind it sharp. The whole thing would then be dipped in cold oil to quench it, so it’d keep the temper and hardness. I learned to pull the drills to bits, re-oil and test them. I’d spend 3- or 6-month periods on such things, then move to a new skill – lathes, drills, tool-making, machines, the fitting shop, then underground to repair pumps and service machines. I went down now to Level 30, the very bottom of the mine, to work on the big water pumps. It was dangerous stuff and I had to keep my wits about me.

In later years, I’d have occasional nightmares about being lost or trapped far below ground in the mines. But one of my riskiest ever jobs was above-ground. I was being taught by an experienced fitter, and we had to replace one of the electric motors powering the cage-lifting wheels. We climbed the 25 metres up the poppet head tower, unbolted the motor and winched it down on a chain. Then we hoisted up the new motor and bolted it in place. There were no safety harnesses, no footplates to walk on, just narrow H-beams to balance on. Every time I looked down, I’d freeze with fear. I've never been afraid of heights, but this was one of the worst jobs I’ve ever had to do.

There were some fun times on the job, though. One bloke was quite the practical joker, always playing tricks on his fellow workers. So one day we decided to get revenge. We waited until he went to the toilet underground – and in those days dunnies weren’t like they are now, with chemical toilets and nice little sinks to wash your hands in. No, they were just 2 sides of corrugated iron with a hessian front, a bucket inside and a plank to sit on. There were no roofs either: they were open to the level above. So we waited until this joker was nicely settled on the plank, then we sneaked up with a big bucket of water, hoisted it up over the toilet wall and completely drenched him! We heard a crash as he fell off the seat, the bucket spilling sewerage everywhere, while we killed ourselves laughing, thinking we’d finally got even. What we didn’t count on was him taking revenge that very afternoon. We’d finished our shift and were looking forward to having that hot shower and going home. Everyone was climbing up the long ladder, towards the next level where the cage was. A shout made us look up.

Blow me, that joker had beaten us to the top of the ladder.

“Hey, look up here!” he yelled, and we got our hot showers early. He must’ve been drinking water all afternoon, holding it in to bursting point. Down came a great stream of urine, splashing over our heads and shoulders, dripping off our crib tins and boots. Nowhere to go, we just had to hang on and take it. He was long gone, of course, by the time we reached the top of the ladder.

Zinc Corporation, Broken Hill 1946