Above Ground
Most underground pit ponies came to the
surface infrequently, if at all. Individual
animals might be brought up for individual
treatment if badly injured or ill or if
required for a show. But the whole stable
would ascend only during a lengthy strike or
if the colliery were one of those which
brought them up during the men’s’ annual
holiday. Bringing ponies to the surface was
never without its difficulties and when the
entire equine workforce was involved it
became a tricky, time-consuming and
expensive operation.
Prior to bringing the horses to the surface,
some collieries had the foresight to have a
farrier remove all the shoes from the ponies
whilst underground, whilst some only removed
the shoes from the hind feet.
The ponies were not used to travelling up
the shaft and it as no doubt a frightening
experience, for the cage moved suddenly and
travelled very quickly. Even getting the
ponies into the cage at all could prove
problematical.
|
……..Getting the ponies out of
the pit was a work of art. The
system was to send them out on the
cage one at a time. The cage was
equipped with a gate, made of 4 or
5 crossed pieces of flat slats of
iron and for the ponies these were
replaced by stout wooden doors
which completely blocked the cage
entrances and made them into two
large boxes. The horses had to be
pushed, pulled and manhandled onto
the cage. When the driver in front
got into the cage, to pull his
horse on, his biggest job then was
to get himself off – he had to
crawl out under the horse’s
belly. The door at the back of the
horse was put on and all hell
broke loose on that cage – the
horse would kick the door all the
way up the shaft and the echoes
boomed like thunder ……..
|
When the ponies were brought to the
surface in large numbers, their arrival at
the pithead could create something of a
community occasion.
This interest of the miners’ children
would continue throughout the ponies’ stay
above ground. The drivers, too, would visit
the ponies and the rare opportunity to allow
the family, particularly the women folk,
into the men’s’ working world, was one
not to be missed. Especially during the long
strikes, the field containing the pit ponies
became the objective of family walks so that
fathers and sons could show off ‘their’
ponies to the women and girls.
The reaction of the ponies to their release
into open fields was, predictably, one of
violent action.
|
...It was proper bedlam. They 'd
run about kicking und squealing
and they seemed to go mad at
first.' The ponies were brought up
and turned out, they just turned
them loose. And there were ponies
killed. Killed each other. They
were all fit, full of choppy, and
never been up, and the kicking and
the fighting you never saw
anything like it, it was
chaos.'...
|
Despite the removal of the shoes a
great deal of damage could be done in the
first days of a 'holiday', and reports of
serious accidents are common. To some
miners the cause of this 'madness' was the
sudden exposure to the light which could,
they believed, temporarily blind the
ponies, for hours if not days, the
inference being that the animals galloped
about in the panic caused by the
'blindness'. A more likely explanation is
to be found in the behaviour of any horse
turned loose into a field after being
under extremely close supervision for a
period of time. The first response
to the new freedom is frequently a buck or
two, a few kicks and then a gallop around
the field.
Introduction manuals on horsemanship
nearly always stress the prudence of
releasing a horse with its back to the
open field so that the handler can easily
move out of the way as the horse is
expected to be violent. It is also a
well-known fact that any loose horses,
which are strangers to each other, will
quickly set about establishing a pecking
order. Therefore, the wild behaviour
of newly released pit ponies is more
likely to be a combination of a sudden
lack of restraint and the establishment of
dominance in the herd.
Despite this, many a miner saw the wild
galloping simply as an expression of
release and joy and took great delight in
witnessing the happiness of a workmate in
his new found freedom.
|
They were put into the field
just outside the pit yard, and
they just loved it. They would
gallop round and round the
field, just for the joy of it,
and all the folk from round
about would come to look at
them. The drivers would go down
and call them by name.
In 1911 a local strike at our pit had the owner turning all the ponies out into the field. It was a surprise to find Punch knew me when I called him. Two or three times each day about fifty or sixty boys would go to the field with their tidbits for the horses they loved well. |
But if the ponies were above ground
long, they changed. They grew fatter in
their unaccustomed idleness, they got
wilder with their lack of handling and
after a while many tended towards an
unwillingness to answer to their names,
and even to ignore their visitors.
If there were problems in bringing the
ponies up and releasing them, there were
even more difficulties in taking them
below again.
|
On the Sunday before the Monday
starting most of the local lads,
those that lived in the village,
well, they called for us to get
the ponies in again. But you
never could catch them, they'd
break away. They had this sixth
sense of having to go down
again. We d to chase them for
fields to get them back again.
The farmers were up in arms.
There were two ponies broke away
and went right up the main road
and we were still out at night
time trying to catch them. They
just went bloody berzerk e know
|
Even when the ponies were safely below
ground again and re-shod, the troubles
were not over.
|
Now the fun started. On Monday
when we went to fetch the ponies
out of the stables we had the
job of our lives. All the ponies
were full of life after their
holiday and we had a job to
control them, even to putting
their harness on, because they’d
keep kicking it off. It was at
least a week before they settled
down.
|
However, most colliery vets were of the
opinion that it would take longer before
the ponies were back to full fitness.:
there would be a loss of weight and
condition as the ponies returned to hard
food after a grass diet. Very often it
would take 3 to 4 weeks for a pony to
return to its pre-holiday state.
The other problem of a holiday diet of
grass was that the pony’s droppings
would become almost liquid, which would
make the riding of the limbers even more
hazardous than normal.
The problems inherent in bringing ponies
to the surface and then returning them
underground resulted in a number of
collieries never to embark on a ‘holiday’
routine or ceasing to operate it. It was
not unknown for the ponies to be kept
underground even during long strikes. If
this was the case, the horse keepers were
permitted by the Unions to go below ground
to look after the horse, as was the case
in the Cambrian Dispute of 1910/11.
The animal welfare societies who
campaigned for holidays for the ponies did
not receive total support from the miners.
Some of the drivers saw the disruption of
the ponies’ routine as both damaging and
unkind.
|
Many people used to say that it
was a good thing to bring the
ponies to bank during holidays
and strikes, but in my opinion,
to bring them to the surface, to
nice fresh grass, then take them
back again was cruel. A case of
“what you’ve never had, you
never miss.”
|
prior
to use. The reason from the graphic is to beat
spammers.