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Look for a knock on the door Monsta. You may have a case to answer. Maybe just from the 'comedy police'.

It's an joke

Sorry to disappoint you just been working to earn a crust pal

I know that's awful but be honest it's want everyone thinks in one way or another.

We stayed in the Pelican motel there Brian!

Hi Folks! "Sprags" was another name for "Dregs"..the latter term being used in every pit I worked at. I think "Sprags" might have been a Durham/Yorkshire pit term,maybe even the Midlands. Whenever you were needing to control the speed,or halt,a pit tub,you hoyed a dreg in between the spokes of..[usually] the back wheel of the tub or tram. Why the back wheel?.....think about it! The tubs and trams had no steering mechanism!...four wheels mounted on two rigid axles,and sitting in rigid,[bearing-less] "Cods",like a half-bush-bearing. If you dregged the front wheels as a vehicle was taking a turn in the roadway,you were asking for it to jump a catch on the rails and hoy it off thi way!! [Refer to Eggy's excellent film..."Jowl...jowl..and listen" where it shows you how to lift a tub back on the way....well....suggestively!] The free-rolling front wheels would ride around a turn,and roll alongside a moderate catch on the rails,while the dregged rear wheels would by now,be skewed and following the front end. A "Catch", on the "way",was a bad joint between the sets of rails as they were laid,usually lack of fish-plates holding them in place,or loose bolts on the plates if these were in place,causing the rail joint to open up,and fall out of line,so producing a "Catch",or "Jump". Choppington High Pit was run on a strand of a shoestring,and we were lucky to even have rails,in the Tailgates,and none whatsoever,in the Mothergates,until the last year or so,when they drifted down to the Top Busty seam,and laid rails in both gates. But in the Beaumont seam,where my Father also worked as a 14 yr old putter,in 1929,nothing had changed by 1959,when I started as a 15 yr old. Now the seams all rose steeply to the West,and it was a hell of a pull for the ponies,taking in heavy machinery,girders ,etc,and the "Way"..[rails-rolleyway..],was badly deteriorated due to all the water running down the roadways,constantly,and forming 100 yard long "Swalleys",up to your waist in places,nothing unusual. The rails in the tailgates never had any fish-plates to tie them together,and a scarcity of sleepers,nails and dogs..[dog is a nail with a turned-over head,which gripped the rail flange to the sleeper,as opposed to a proper nail which went through a hole in the rail flange,into the sleeper.] SO!! .....going up a typical tailgate,was like going up Murphy's Switchbacks!!....zig-zag all the way with most rails having catches on them. Getting off the way with a coal-cutter stator..[motor section],weighing 23cwt..[nearly a ton and a quarter..],in a swalley in waist-deep black stinking water,with your pony deciding it was toilet-time,and passing 200 gallons of ammonia into the water,as well as other things...........wasn't much fun! We would get back on the way,heaving with sweat,and knowing that the Electrician would condelm the motor with an earth-fault, would still have to persevere our way right up to the coal-face!! Now,on the way back outbye,we would be dropping severely in places,so we would put a wood dreg in the rear wheels of the tram,climb aboard,and stick our wellied-foot through the bars of the tram,and put the sole of our welly onto the flange of the front wheels,and "brake " the speed of the tram down the steepest parts of the roadway,still travelling at speeds of about 15 mph or more on straight stretches!!....which is incredibly fast when the roadway arched girders are only 12 inches from your face!!!! Sometimes dregs broke,and the tram just went "Amain",[out of control],with the pony galloping like hell as the tram hit his fetlocks.....we didn't have "Limmers" [limbers],just thin tracing chains attached to the pony's collar,each side,and attached to the tub or tram. We HAD to rely on dregs all the time. The reference to a "Spragger",would refer to a young kid,just started the pit,who worked at the shaft top,on the Heapstead,dregging "chummings"..[empty tubs] as they approached the shaft flatsheets.or at the shaft bottom,either working in the "Dish",dregging the chummings ready to send inbye in "Sets" on the haulage rope,or on the "Kip",dregging full'uns [full tubs],as they came free-fall to the shaft bottom,ready to send to bank..[the surface],after being filled at the "Loader-end", which was usually a canny distance inbye from the shaft bottom. More kids than enough had badly crushed hands doing these jobs,[including my older Brother,AND Myself,cos you had to couple and uncouple the sets of tubs as they were moving..[no H&S them days!] I often wonder what the average 15 yr old kid would say nowadays if he was stuck into a job like that! Nice to be back on the forum!

Thanks Eggy! This is a great film,a cudn't leave it ti gaan and put thi kettle on! Browt back a lot of memories again. Aa was 15 yrs aad,and working on thi screens,when a had my first experience of a fatality. The fella was a real canny owld sowl,and he went in ti oil and grease aal thi shakers,and conveyor belt gearboxes,which he had done for many many years,till that fateful day. We didn't actually witness his accident,but got graphic details from those who did witness it,and it lived with me for the rest of my life. It was a case of Jimmy was cracking jokes and getting he's bait with us one minute,then when he didn't return from he's tasks,after a half-hour had passed,we were told he had been fatally injured. It was a traumatic event for a 15 yrs old kid to experience. When I got home and told my Parents ,sitting at the dinner table,my Father went daft with me,cos he hadn't wanted me to work in the pits,especially THAT pit,cos he had worked there as a 14 yr old laddie as well,in 1929. His words were,"Thi bugga's aal rough and ready,and ye'll get bliddy killed doon that bugga"...[exact quote!"] That pit didn't change right to the day they closed it in 1966!....it was STILL rough and ready....I never witnessed so many accidents at any other pit as I did at Choppington High Pit! I've still got deformed and disfigured hands and other scars yet from my six years down that hell-hole.

Just more waffle honstly why post made up drivle isn't that what Facebook's for