whittle colliery drift belt incident

[davey buck]

Hi I was interested to know if anyone can remember what year the incident happened at whittle colliery, when several men doing fore shift got injured going down the stationary drift belt. I was also present at the incident as I was working at the mine, but have been unable to recall what year this was

[Coquet]

I can remember it, but not the year. I cut the article on it out of the Gazette at the time but can't find the cutting! The newspaper headline was "Helter Skelter Horror Ride" or something similar. The drift man-riding set was broken down or otherwise not available and everyone on that shift had to walk down the drift. A few men decided that it would be possible to slide down the cable belt rather than walk but things went badly wrong and they went into an uncontrollable slide at high speed, and some were badly injured.

[davey buck]

Originally Posted by Coquet

I can remember it, but not the year. I cut the article on it out of the Gazette at the time but can't find the cutting! The newspaper headline was "Helter Skelter Horror Ride" or something similar. The drift man-riding set was broken down or otherwise not available and everyone on that shift had to walk down the drift. A few men decided that it would be possible to slide down the cable belt rather than walk but things went badly wrong and they went into an uncontrollable slide at high speed, and some were badly injured.

Yeah that's right a few did go down the belt, I was one of the many that decided to walk down the drift which was something of the norm in fore shift as the both the belt and drift man riding set were unavailable. It was as the paper at the time described a horror show. I have tried to recall the dates but have been unable to date ,will keep looking anyway

[leslie]

http://www.dmm.org.uk/names/a1946-91.htm

[leslie]

http://www.dmm.org.uk/colliery/w017.htm

[janwhin]

We think it was probably 1983.