Anecdotes about Pit Ponies
...Glitter was a mild-tempered animal
who would work like the rest up until 9 o'clock in the
morning and would then refuse to work until the haulier
who was in charge of him gave him a piece of twist tobacco.
After this he was all right again...
...There was one called Mouse, he did
not drink the water in your bottle but would eat the
cork, and if he found your clothing he would chew off
all the buttons. When you had to hook his limber to
the tub he knew whether you had put your foot between
the rails or the plates as they were called, and he
would kick out and catch your leg...
...Wallace used to wait until you were
putting his harness on in his stall and he would feel
about with his left foreleg until he got onto your toes.
All he had to do then was to lean on you and you can
imagine the yells that used to come from the stall!...
He caught quite a few of us like this.
..Little Vane was one of those who counted
the clank of the coupling chains, but he was in a Union
of his own - he would pull only two tubs.'...
...One instance was when I was pony-driving
from the coalface to the top of the jinny. The youth
controlling the jinny had hung his waistcoat up with
his snap* and watch in the pockets. The pony had nosed
around until he got the scent of the snap, and in the
finish had chomped the snap, the waistcoat and the pocket-watch,
so there was neither snap nor time left!...
* Food
...We had one called Honesty, you know,
there was what you call a bait-hole, was shot out of
the side, there was a choppy-box in there. Now, the
foreshift lads, if we went down about four o'clock,
and the backshift lads came in about nine, they had
to take our ponies while we got our snap back of the
choppy-box, you see ... you put your bottle on there,
and if Honesty was there, he would have your bottle
and the cork out before you could say Jack Robinson.
With his lips ... he'd lie down ... with his lips, and
the cork wus out... he used to waste half of it, you
know, drink as much as he could like… aye…Honesty ...
I'll not forget him ..a skewbald...’
...Several of the ponies used to like
a pinch of snuff ... you used to put a pinch on the
back of your hand and give it to the pony and he used
to curl his nostril up, just us if he was laughing,
then sneeze.'...
...He would pull 6 or 7 full tubs at
once, he would get down on his knees to grip the ground
and pull away and without a word from me he would know
when to stop pulling and he would cross out from the
road us I unhooked his chain and the tubs would run
on into the other tubs. This pony was very intelligent,
and I thought a lot of him, that much that I had a tattoo
of Bloom's head put on my right arm in 1931 and it's
still there, a reminder of those great, hardworking
little animal who would never give up or be beaten...
...This is about a horse called Eagle,
who was put down the pit before he was ready, for the
sake of the costs. The hauler who was put in charge
of him could do nothing with him, or any other hauler
in the pit. After about two weeks he broke away while
being hitched to some full trams of coal, ran away from
the coalface and ran into a broken roof support and
was killed. There was a management enquiry. My father
represented the hauler. My father claimed that Eagle
should not have been down the pit without being correctly
broken in for the work of hauling trams of coal. He
won the case, and so the hauler was not held responsible
for the death of Eagle. The funny part of this story
is that the hauler told his wife that the manager had
blamed him and that he had to pay the cost of the horse
- £25 to be deducted from his pay packet at two shillings
and sixpence [12.5p] a week. The haulier used then to
write at the bottom of his pay docket “Horse – 2/6d”.
So he had an extra five pints of beer each week, beer
being sixpence [5p] in those days. After about a year
his wife found out the truth and gave him one hell of
belting….
...His name was Piper. What a rebel,
a rebel who employed passive resistance as his most
formidable weapon. Piper was a stint pony, which meant
pulling twenty empty drams and the haulage rope in-bye
for about three-quarters of a mile. The first two runs
of drams he would pull till his belly touched the floor
and take the run of empties in-bye without a murmur.
The third run of empties Piper pulled his act. The driver
would fasten his limbers into the tube and shout, "Come
on, Piper". Piper would just cock his head on one side,
look at the river as if to say "You'll be lucky" and
gently sink to his knees and lie down. Nothing on earth,
or underneath for that matter, would shift Piper. He
would lie there oblivious of anyone about him. The drivers
got that used to him playing this stunt that they played
the same game and sat down beside him. After a short
period he would, with assistance, struggle to his feet
and carry on until he felt the need for having another
rest.' …
…There was a period when another young
chap and I had to start work an hour or two before the
others on the shift started. We had to go a mile in-bye
to the stables. We would collect six ponies and bring
them out-bye to the new district. We would bring them
out of the stables, set them on their way, and he and
I would follow behind and chat and sometimes have a
sing-song. Then when we got close to our destination
one of us would go to the front with our first pony.
Then, one morning, we found one missing. I went back
to investigate and found him in the stable. This happened
several days, and always it was the same pony missing!
Mack was his name and he was jet-black. So we had to
keep our eyes open really wide and it happened that
halfway out I spotted him in a man-hole, just waiting
fro us to pass him, and then he’d make his way back
to the stables!…..
…..I had Bumble a while, when I was a
driver. When we first went at start the shift and he
was in the mood he used to get under a certain piece
of head timber and rub his back on it, an he would not
move until he was ready. The rule was that he had to
be brought out last, but the drivers used to bring him
out first, jut out of mischief, and of course no-one
could get past him, and there was only one way out of
the stables……..
...Major was one for going for a walk
back to the stables if he got the chance, but I had
one ace up my sleeve to stop him wandering off. He had
one weakness, he would not open ventilation doors as
most ponies did. To keep him safe and to know where
to find him I used to put him between two ventilation
doors, which were about 15 to 20 yards apart. Although
he wouldn't open the doors he would try to kick them
down, and one day I left him, kicking the doors as usual.
I knew he couldn't hurt the doors, they were sturdily
built. About two hours later, when I came back, there
was Major at the other door, belting away at it like
mad. I went and calmed him down, but he had another
kick at he door whilst I was holding him, and I thought
at the time that was unusual. Then I heard a voice on
the other side of the door - "Have you got hold of that
bloody horse?" It was the Deputy. He said, “I've been
trying to get through that... door fur an hour, and
every time I pushed it open that ... horse kicked it
shut!'
...Then I saw him turn round towards
me and I sensed that something was wrong and Tim had
sensed it. It was then I heard a sound I'd heard before,
a runaway of drams coming towards us. I scrambled out
of the dram; I knew I could do nothing for Tim, the
road was too narrow and I had only seconds to try and
find a "manhole", where the side was cut away at intervals
to provide a shelter for such an event. I couldn't find
one and all I could do was to squeeze myself upright
against the side wall as the runaway drams roared past
me, breaking the bottle of tea which was in a "poacher's
pocket" on the inside of my waistcoat, and my oil-lamp
was hit and extinguished, and then I heard the crash
as the runaway drams hit Tim and the empties he had
been pulling, just a few yards away. I was scared stiff
and for what seemed ages I couldn't move, then with
the smell of the dust in my nose and hearing Tim groaning,
I just sat down and cried, and was still there when
I saw lights bobbing towards me and some miners had
come to see what had happened. One took me farther away
and the others cleared the rubble and got Tim out. They
told me his "cobble stick" - that's the wooden cross
piece that the chain pulling the drams is attached to
- had up-ended and taken the weight of the runaway train
as it hit the pony and then the roof, and, apart from
limping badly, and the shock, Tim seemed alright. It
didn't take them long to dear the road and I recovered
quickly, not just how lucky I had been. However, there
was no work to be done by Tim and me that day and we
made our way with we of the men back through the air-doors,
Tim still limping. But, once through the doors he must
have known he was heading hack to the stables, and his
limp disappeared, and all the way back he walked all
right till he got to the stables, when he put on the
limp again and I'm sure that it was to impress the man
in charge of the stables, I believe Tim had a few days
off' to get over it, and I did the same……
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