Imminent Heat Stroke in the Inferno

From Harknell, I have figures for heat and humidity in Snowdon pit back in the day (100˚F at the face (38C) humidity 80˚)

I wanted to know what these figure might mean in terms of health so-

Using this Humidex rating scrumped from the Canadian Occupational Health Resource to plotted Snowdon conditions on the graph (represented with a star). Results in a Humidex reading of 58- in the red ‘imminent heat stroke’ zone.

This graph doesn’t take account of the poor ventilation and amount of dust in ‘the Inferno’

So how did men fare under those conditions?

Mr McEwan quoted by Harknell: ‘ There was a fella tramped from Durham, took him seven days to get here, and he got his job on the Monday night, he sat down at 2-o-clock and said” I do feel bad”, and the next thing he just keeled over-dead as doornails’

Others got out in time:

‘The heat was so tremendous that he couldn’t stick it. He came, signed on, so pleased he’d got a job and then- he disappeared.’

And some that were flagging were pushed out in time:

‘Some of them couldn’t work, they were too weak. They were in such bad stress after walking down. They eventually got the sack, they’d have a note on their lamp and they’d have to see the manager. He’d stand them off and then they’d walk back. It was terrible. They didn’t have much help of us either. It was dog eat dog. You didn’t have the money.’

You had to be under forty, in good health, and to have worked recently to have a chance at Snowdon- The point is Snowdon conditions were just at the limit of human tolerance-

Temperature/ humidity comfort readings. Snowdon pit 1920s represented by star.

Diagram explained here

The Migration of Mining Families to the Kent Coalfield between the Wars, comes to Belgium

Today was a very special day because Volume 6, Number 1 of the journal of the Oral History Society , 1978, the one with the article -

The Migration of Mining Families to the Kent Coalfield between the Wars, by Gina Harkell.

Thumped and struggled thru the letter box

‘Each to his own, ‘ my husband said, off my joy.

I sent my cheque this time last year.
After three months I e-mailed to ask what had happened to my journal?

No reply and my hopes slowly seeped away. But I was too hasty – possibly,the postman had walked it to Belgium, taking odd jobs on the way.

I cant publish it here, copyright . But I have listed names of miners and wives quoted - if you are looking for ancestors check the list linked here, and if that’s not enough information -e-mail me and I’ll send you the relevant quote. Then you’ll know if the journal is worth the 25 pound and 12 month waiting list!

Conditions in the pit( miners early this century made a distinction between a pit which could only be reached by a shaft, and a mine that could be walked into,by their lights Snowdon was a pit not a mine - my blog is misnamed) and the dissatisfaction in Aylesham in those early years were worse even then I thought- but that’s for another post.

Beachcombing for Mine Equipment?

Last week we walked along beautiful beaches from Cove to North of Berwickin Scotland, sand rippled with coal dust,and piled with driftwood and bones of gannets from the great gannetry of bass rock.

(Many were dark feathered – flightless fledglings who plunge into the sea and have a dangerous swim of it for the first two weeks of their migration)

But also rusting machinery – one looked like an airplane undercarriage; another had four wheels still connected on an axle, perhaps from a narrow gauge train?

That l liked and wanted to take home to grow pinks and sea holly around it (but practically difficult with the rust and moving parts). It was only when we stopped at the National coal mining museum near Barnsley on the way back to Hull ferry that I could identify these machines as the bones of abandoned coal mines, the set of wheels I fancied was from a truck that carries the coal up out of the mines.

I tried to find out more but I found only this excellent essay, A Sense of time in the Fife Coalfields on the sea and the abandoned mines of Fife a little further north. It’s also the funniest geology essay I’ve read, thru admittedly possibly the only geology essay I’ve read.

The Author tells of the collapse of land and beach in Fife as the land settles and shifts into its abandoned mines, of signs reading ’ beware road subsiding ‘- of a mine closed in 1972, but still being pumped to prevent flooding of the surrounding land.

He says ‘trash rock that came out of the active mine was dumped straight onto the coast.’

All along the beaches too you could see lumps of old brick structures deposited, presumably from the coalmines, and forming part of the sea defences now. An old lime kiln stood just down from the cement works.

I carelessly, thought to take no pictures of the jetsam, so this is Tourness nuclear power station, always in sight, wherever we walked.

Mine Closed for Holidays until August 24th

Bandy legged Dog and Spotty Dog do the Egg and Spoon Race

Here’s another vivid piece of twenties life from the same page in the Dover Express as the Boy who caught Fire-

Not a lot to say about this, except that communities really knew how to make their own entertainment in the good old days-

But note that althrough the charming prize categories in the Dog Show are remarkably democratic - open to every village child and mongrel- only two winner’s owners get their names in the paper, Mrs Barlow of Eythorne House, Eythorne and Mr D. McCall Smith, and they are surely gentry -

Great Mongeham

DOG SHOW- On Saturday a dog show organised by Miss Wickham and the Hon. Mrs. Walter James, took place in the local Nursing Association. Prizes were given for the longest dog, and the dog with the longest tail, the most bandy –legged dog; the dog with the most spots, the biggest and the smallest dogs, and the one with the most sympathetic eyes. There was also a tortoise race, a three legged race, an egg and spoon race (with dog attached), also a dog race with owners attached. All created the utmost amusement for a large crowd of spectators. The programme concluded with an amusing parade of dogs in Fancy Dress. The judges were Sir Reginald Tower, Lord Northbourne and Mrs. S. Spanton. The championship prize was won by a Red Setter belonging to Mrs. F. Barlow, of Eythorne House, Eythorne, and that for the smallest dog by Mr. D. McCall Smith of Ash, with an 18 months old Pekinese ‘Old Bill’, weighing just over three pounds. The prize for the ugliest dog was awarded to a Dalmatian.

Boys who Catch Fire

I have returned to the Misery Farm story, picking up speed to about 2 pages a year, I’ll be finished in oh, four hundred years.

I am constantly distracted by, eg, the photocopies I took of relevant articles in the Dover Express and East Kent News, but it’s the little items tucked away on the same page that mesmerize


Here’s one

Dover Express and East Kent News, Friday 16th August 1928

SHEPERDSWELL-

VICARS PROGRESS- We are pleased to announce that the REV. E.C. Robinson is progressing favourably after being burnt on the hands in helping a boy who had caught fire on Wednesday last week. His duties at the church on Sunday last were carried carried out by the Rev P Wilson, who will also conduct the services on Sunday next,



And I can’t stop thinking about this- (of course I found out when I started researching this story last year that accidents illness and death rate in kent in the 1920s were heartbreaking, the accident rate in Snowdon mine itself makes a tour of duty in Iraq look pretty attractive, but on top of that people are dying of infections in the hospital, of a lack of waryness of motorized vehicles, all sorts )

However this newsbite's tone suggests that a boy catching fire is such an everyday occurrence that that there is no need for any How? Where? Who?- Further there is no report on the boy’s condition- I hope that’s because he fared better then his rescuer -But you can’t help thinking that maybe the nuisance caused by burning boys is such that the Express’s readers aren’t too concerned by the fate of another careless hobbledehoy.


In fact come to think of it, my maternal Granny (a Brixton girl who had been hoppicking in Kent 20 years earlier, and a repository of stunning information of questionable use) was quite keen that I learn the proper way to put out a burning person. You wrapped them in your coat and rolled them on the ground, this was fast (cut off oxygen to the fire) and avoided injury to your hands. Gran said it was no use hesitating and worrying about coat loss. Possibly the Rev didn’t have his coat in August. It is fortunate that I have never needed this particular piece of knowledge until now-

Stalled

I am confused about the presence or not of a stall system at Snowdon. (In a stall a miner would be sent to work as part of a small gang) Brian Elks has the miners of Snowdon working at a single face in 1911(no stall) Articles from the local paper clearly refer a stall system in place in the 1920s. See eg Trouble at the Pit. George who mined at snowdon post war until closure told me there was never a stall system at Snowdon.

Can the newspaper reports be misleading,or could the system have changed several times with the development of the seams being mined?

Can anyone clear this up for me?

Give me the Child, on second thoughts just take it to the Workhouse.

I have been reading Brian Elks novelised biography of his grandfather ,Jack Elks of the Kent Mineworkers association, 'Give me the Child'

Fascinating, miners wept at Jack Elks funeral, single minded hard working and capable official who fought for and united the mineworkers of Kent.

Bit of a bugger to his family. His daughter's lover approached him for permission to marry. He sent him packing. He's a soldier. (What will you do on the picket line) Sends him packing. I guess this is no surprise, Elks has seen many picket lines, maybe needs a little time. But the daughter is pregnant, he sends her and the baby to the workhouse, daughter runs away baby is lost in the system.

But I can't be judgemental -
because whilst looking for something else entirely this Spring I hit the inmate list of Faversham workhouse in 1881
see
Arthur Higgins . pauper .male. I year old. born Faversham
This child would have been born in 1880, Emily's parents having been married in late 1880.

Emily higgins. my grandmother of Ackholt farm, had a number of brothers and sisters, for one we have no birth details, but a name,Arthur Rodney. And I was thinking is this baby Great Uncle Arthur, born too early(before the wedding and consequently abandonned temporarily or for good?
But more was to come. Last month my cousin sent me this birth record-

Name:	Leslie Stuart H Clark
Year of Registration:	1904
Quarter of Registration:	Apr-May-Jun
District:	Thanet
County:	Kent
Volume:	2a
Page:	1036

Leslie Stuart Hamilton Clark was my Dad's name. My dad was born in February 1913. We know that the Higgins side of the family were very fond of the name Leslie Stuart Hamilton, there was a great uncle called Leslie Stuart Hamilton Higgins. We found some distantly related Higginses, who had gone on having Leslie Stuart Hamiltons up to the mid twentieth century, but they didnt know why there ancestors liked this name either- but is it possible that another Higgins likeing the name Leslie Suart Hamilton other then Emily married another Clark other then William? It must be an older brother older brother,( if a higgins couple liked a name they would use it several times until the baby lived) But the problem is that we've dated this wedding picture as 1904, it's clearly summer. Leslie Stuart Hamilton Clark the first was born in the Spring? Another premarital baby?

Even in the 1940s my widowed mother was under pressure from her Inlaws to put her son in the workhouse. It seems many people were not adverse to putting a baby in the workhouse-

I dont know if workhouse baby 1880, Arthur, was a relative. It seems very unlikely Leslie the first could be anything other then Leslie the second's brother. But did he die? or was he abandoned?


I'd been planning to write a bit more about Give me the Child, but got , quite unplanned, distracted with abandoned babies, so I'll post that later.