Manvers Main

Just came across this short film on the National Film Theatre site.

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film...6&utm_source=cm membership&utm_term=WATCH NOW

Different times indeed. Everyone wore a hat/cap.

 

I used to cycle down to Manvers to watch the steam shunting engines working in the marshalling yards (about 1970). The engine men would often ask me if I wanted a ride on the engine. One day I rode in a diesel shunter and the driver actually let me have a drive, had to hide when we passed the offices though.....

 

When I was at school I had a couple of visits down Manvers. Fortunately I never had a work down the mines.

 

i did all my underground and coal face training at manvers, happy memories for me.

 

Did my Basic training at Manvers, Face training at Elsecar but my own pit was Cortonwood.

 

Didn't they have a mock coal face at Manvers?

 

The blokes probably stood and said "Call thisen a coil face?"

 

On my visit, I noticed a piece of graffiti at the pit bottom. It stated that "X was a lovely person". X being the husband of my cousin, who was an overman at the colliery.

 

I went down Manvers once on a school trip. I still remember the cage and the speed we went down the shaft; flashes of light as we passed different seams. Then onto a diesel train, then a walk, then a pulley train, then a walk, and then a quick dash to get under the overhang to the pit face.

As the lift plummeted down the shaft, the kid next to me had nose bleed from the pressure. Fun times!

An interesting Geology "A" Level day out.

 

I was at Wath Main when it was part of the Manvers Complex, first on the stockyard and then underground on the common haulage. The coal was wound out at Manvers, as I recall.

 

Good friend of mine worked at the Manvers Coking ovens from the age of 16(I think) Then went on to a few Coking ovens before arriving at Monckton(Royston).
Still working at Scunthorpe Ovens, he's done around 50 years on Coking ovens, a chuffin reight hero & still going strong.

 

cortonwood was my first pit.

 

I did my classroom training at Barnsley Main and the under ground training was at Grimethorpe in the old Barnsley bed. I know we went over to Manvers for some kind of training but can't rememebr what it was.

 

All I remember was the horrible looking place at the side of the road between Wath and Mexborough.
And the vile smell.

 

I did my underground training at Barnsley main in the Barnsley Bed, and my face training at Grimthorpe in the "sweatbox" Park gate seam back to Dodworth on 3's in't Whinmoor.

 

It was awful in Bolton and Goldthorpe when the wind was in the wrong direction.
Actually there were 2 wrong directions, if the wind was coming from the Barnbrough direction, you had the stink from the maggot farm.....
I remember the flame on top of the coking ovens, burning off the CO, it was visible for miles around at night.

 

Excellent film.
Interesting that the captions in the film use the term 'Colliers.'
In the clip where the colliers are going to start their shift they're carrying sort of metal cylinders - what were these.
Some of the colliers look to be barely out of their teens.

 

Don't know what these metal cylinders were Taff unless they were for carrying pills of powder, shot fire'er carried the dets, or they were there snap tins ours were square-ish, misen I took 2 slices of fat and bread raped in a mothers pride bread wrapper and a bottle of water some times had cold tea in it with no milk or sugar.

 

flame was burning CH4 off, CO is non flammable

 

Them metal cylinders are their lamps, this film is before the use of cap lamps

some were carrying 2 lamps, one was their handheld lamp for seeing with , the other is a flame safety lamps for gas testing