Hafod Hooter

A deep mine was sunk at Hafod in the 1860s and worked for a hundred years. Millions of tons of coal were dug up and sold. Gas was also piped out of the mine to fire the quarry tiles made nearby. The clay works and the mine at Hafod were often in joint ownership. Many of the miners’ homes in Rhosllanerchrugog are made from the bright red clay dug up and fired at Hafod.

The local chapels exerted a strong influence underground. Miners had to keep to high moral standards. Many miners walked the mile or two to work or rode in buses. At the end of the 6 O’clock shift the mine’s hooter blew, a signal for the wives at home to get the potatoes on because their husbands and sons would soon be home for dinner.

To reach the coal seams, over 25 million tons of waste stone and shale had to be dug out. This material was banked up to form the hill at Hafod. The amount of coal dug out was far greater, look at the hill at Hafod and imagine an even larger hill of black coal. This coal was the reason why Johnstown and Rhos were built, with families moving from other parts of the country to work in the mines. Coal was the driving force of the area’s economy and social structure for a century.

‘Working at Hafod’ collected by Huw Crompton.

In 2012, A group of about 20 miners attended workshops with various artists at the Hafod Colliery Social Club. This was to put their ideas to the artists and guide them in the creation of the sculptures and pictures explaining the history and operation of the mine, which were made and installed during 2012. Whilst doing this, a number of stories and anecdotes were told by the miners, 23 of these appear here.

The first stories are from Keith Evans, himself a treasure trove of his own experiences at Hafod and other mines, worthy of a book or website in his own right. Keith is a guide at the Llay mining museum and entertains and informs schoolkids there along with his colleague John Wiltshire.

Practical jokes down the pit
‘Hafod was my first place of work. I grew up at the pit and had a lot of learning experiences. At 16, I was caught playing a prank that went wrong: setting off a runaway tub. It was in the elevens district face, and it was our job to supply the colliers with straps and rings in empty coal tubs. We uncoupled the belting between two loaded tubs and set it off, shouting ‘runaway, runaway’. The tub careered down the track and crashed not hitting anybody, fortunately, but it spilled and we had to refill it. I was punished by being hung up by the ankles using steel rings, with no clothes on!. It was serious and it’s funny to look back on it now, but I never did that again’

A young lad down the pit
‘I escaped punishment when I fell asleep once clearing up a the end of the afternoon shift looking after the journey crossing, that’s where two tracks cross and a lookout has to make sure the tubs don’t collide. I curled up in a big army overcoat in the heat and wasn’t watching at all, I was asleep. Tommy Condi caught me and I was lucky not to be disciplined that time’

Finding fossils
‘We really loved finding things in and between the coal seams. Once, we took out the coal to find the roof was shaped and sculpted like a curved stream bed made up from different stones and shales that had been next to the coal all this time. It was like a river system but upside down on the ceiling, really beautiful and a nice surprise’

Going fishing at the pit bottom
‘Even more interesting than that, we found a fish made of very hard stone coal, just by the fitter’s cabin at the downshaft pit bottom. It was in a good spot for us to see. It wasn’t very big, about a foot long, but it was very beautiful. Various people tried to get it out without damaging it, but the surrounding coal was as hard as coal can get, nobody could do it, I think we broke it in the end which is a shame’

Going to the toilet at Hafod… or not
‘Hygiene was very basic underground at Hafod, and instead of toilets, we had to bury our waste with our shovels choosing the spot carefully, hoping that no one else dug just there. If you did dig there, then it was just bad luck!!!!’

The bus stop as Rhos
‘When the mine closed, 3 buses took a number of former miners to McAlpines at 7am every day, from Rhos. What was unusual was that waiting for the bus were our friends from the mine who had got into the habit of going there, to be sociable, even though they weren’t going anywhere.’

Stories from Terry (Sticks) Davies:

Everybody had a nickname at Hafod
‘…even those who said they did not! A new guy came up from South Wales an experienced miner. We pressed him for him to tell us his nickname and he stoutly refused. Eventually he came out with it, he said he was ‘too sly’ for a nickname, which of course we used straight away as his! My nickname ‘Sticks’ was because my mother’s family used to sell chopped sticks, and often your name came from a hidden part of your family, like a grandmother’s maiden name, or like from my dad’s side, Bowker. But everybody had one from one place or another!’

Throw away your pick and shovel……
‘When mechanical shearers were introduced, we were told to throw out our shovels, we would be using spanners and new machines. This meant that instead of using wooden pit props and chopping out the coal with a pick and shovel, instead, the shearer had hydraulic props that held up the roof, then revolving teeth that tore into the seam and cut out the coal with a lot less effort than using a pick and shovel. But the shovel was still needed move all that loose coal into tubs, so it was not true at all, but still, a new era had begun with big machines underground’

Stories from Ken Valentine

Hafod’s Hooter was the sweetest music…..
‘…sweeter indeed than any that Handel composed, we used to say! During the Second World War, the men would meet at the cross in Rhos, when it stood at that time in the middle of the road with some steps underneath, there was a gas lamp too, it has since been moved and it’s just road there now. The mine had to work short shifts because many of the lads were away in the forces on active service, and often, the afternoon shift was the last of the day. The Hooter would blow to signal that the next shift was not needed. So smiles all around, and relief that we would not have to go to work. Normally the hooter means the end of the shift but in the war it was music to our ears!!!! That was before I began work myself’

Fossil trees underground!
‘We had been blasting out a section of coal and after the explosion, we went back in to clear up and there was a tree trunk still standing there, it had survived the blast. The trunk was all textured like the skin of a pineapple. We could have chopped it down but we left it standing and we worked past it, it had been there all this time and deserved a bit longer, it might still be there now’

My working life at Hafod
‘In 1949, the starting age was raised from 14 to 15, that’s how old I was when I began at Hafod. I worked from then to after the pit closed and I left on March 9th 1969, I moved to Gresford but was not happy there, so I moved to BICC cables on Wrexham Industrial Estate where I worked for another 30 years!’

Stories from Elwyn Roberts

Snap tin: mice-proof lunch boxes
‘I worked at Hafod 1962 to 1968. Our lunchboxes, called snap, were made of tin. This is because of the mice underground, the pit had plenty and we did not want them eating our food! If your lunch was in a paper bag, the mice would eat it before you did.

Stories from Eric Evans

Off to a frightening start at Hafod
‘I started at Hafod in 1955 (I was 15) and worked at Hafod until it closed in 1968. I must admit the first time I was in the cage, on my first day, going down it was terrifying it was so fast and jerky not like a modern lift at all. We went down at a hell of a speed, but I found out later that it depended who was operating the cage controls that week and we could feel the difference between Joe or Jack say, sending us down’

An accident at the pit bottom
‘I remember one accident that happened right in front of me at the pit bottom. I forget the man’s name but can see his face clearly. The tubs were being lashed together with rope and chains and the man in front of me got his hand stuck as the tubs drew together, he lost two fingers there and then. He did not work again and retired. When the pit closed, I went to work on the railways, shunting’

Walking to Hafod from Rhos and back again
‘On a nice day, we used to walk to work across the fields from home in Rhos to Hafod. It used to take about half an hour or so, and the same back, except we would take the bus if the weather was bad’

Stories by Edgar Rogers

Pit ponies at Hafod
‘The ponies were very clever and knew their work well, they were not to be underestimated. If one was pulling 5 full tubs and you added a sixth, they would know and not shift, how stubborn is that. They really appreciated an apple or carrot as a gift, but if you weren’t looking, they knew how to take the cork off your water bottle and have a drink! They must have been as thirsty as we were. What was really special (and very useful to us) was that the ponies would know how strong the pit roof was, and would not want to advance into a place if they thought it was about to collapse. They could sense this better than we could ourselves, I don’t know how’

Hafod on fire!
‘Once there was a big fire on the old level at No1 pit and I was in the rescue team, we went down to put the fire out. The compressor belt drive had kept running with the machine valves turned off and fire had broken out from the friction of the belt on the pulley. Rescue conditions for us were truly awful. Luckily nobody was injured or killed in that one, which burned for a whole week!’

The Hafod miners’ male voice choir
‘We had a fair distance to walk from the shaft bottom to the places we had to work and often had to walk for 20 minutes or more, singing songs. We used to sing all kinds of music. On the way back up, in the cage, as we approached the surface, hymns were our favourites and that was when we sang those. We would spend a lot of the day singing especially when we were walking around’

The Hafod cage: lift joy riders
‘If the last cage going down was full of the very young lads like myself, we would pull faces and shout at the winding man to make him give us an exciting ride. He would send down the cage at a hell of a pace, operating the controls roughly, and we thought it a real thrill, it was not for the older men at all. The things we did for fun, like a theme park ride today’

Stories from Neville Roberts

Neville was a local farmer and not a miner at all, but knew the Hafod tip when it was being reworked in the lagoon washings phase in the 1980’s and got involved then.

Digging out the fish ponds
‘During the miners’ strike around 1984, the open cast machinery at the Hafod lagoons was not being used and was idle, so I borrowed a big dragline excavator, and drove it across the fields east to Middle Sontley where I had my farm, to dig out the fishing ponds. There was no A483 bypass in the way then, it would be impossible now. The hedges had to be fixed where it went through with its tracks. At that time, I also lost a farm dog in the muddy lagoons, a collie, not a safe place for a dog to go for a swim’

Stories from John Hughes

The hot old mine workings
‘I worked in the old mine below the more recent workings where it was much warmer. That was in the 80th South district, in 1945 It was such a long walk in we did one long shift of 4 hours, taking out 4 yards of coal, in a working day that meant 4 hours of walking as well. Luckily we had a great pit pony called ‘Moon’ who knew his own way to the pit bottom and was always there first before us. The new mine was much colder and there was less walking in time and more time actually on the face, harder work in a way, but with the machines it was very different to working in the old pit’

Fossil leaves in the roof
‘We often used to find big, beautiful leaves in the roof, to look up at and admire all the veins and the shapes. It was easier for us to show these before the machines came in shearing our everything in one go’

Singing and concerts
‘The mine was the ideal venue for our own concerts with the music carrying down all the tunnels. We had some very good singers, and a lot of travelling time to use up walking and in the cages too, so we used to sing and sing, almost anything. One or two of us would be the leaders and it was top quality music to hear every day, what a treat at work’

Other miners contributing stories were: Price Evans, Elwyn Stokes, Wynn Tunnah, Elfed Owens and Peter Williams

Coal formation in Hafod’s prehistoric forest