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Format: MP3. Size: 341 Kb.
Length: 1 minute 56 seconds
Estimated download time:
with a 56.6 modem - 1 min 30 sec
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Jim Slaughter's Narrative History:
Breaking the Props
"Now a funny thing� another little story� Once this face started�It would probably start about here�.and every day there was
a cut taken off, you see? Now, when the drawers first started taking these props and planks out of the waste ground, the roof
wouldn�t come down. You got further in, further in (and this is the terrifying part). When men were coming out, and men were
going in, you used to shout to the men that was coming out , �has she had her break yet?� �Cos when it did finally have its
break, this is when the men flew off the face, all that would come down, about twenty, thirty yards of (top?) because all the
timber and props had been drawn out. And it used to blow your carbide lamp out, naturally, the draught. And I remember being
on the face one day, and I had gone in about two hours after the drawers, and I was in the middle of the face filling a
little bit of coal that had been left, and the drawers said they would go for their bait. I said, �Oh, it�s a bit �sharp�
for me, I�ll stop on the face�. And I was the only one on, when she had her break. I had coal in me finger-nails, I bet.
It�s terrifying, blows your lamp out. You�re in complete darkness. You dive into the coal and you hope that the props and
planks� and when it did break..believe it or not, it broke as clean as a whistle behind that prop. All the way down the face,
and then, after that, once it had had its first break, it used to break every day. Every day when they drew these planks
and props out."
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