Visit to mine a blast

The Sullivan Mine. Photo supplied.
The Sullivan Mine. Photo supplied.

There was magic down a mine for 9-year-old Trevor Kempton.

The West Coast was my family's regular holiday destination.

Just after Christmas each year we packed the green and white tent, hitched the trailer behind the Vauxhall Velox and headed off for the ''coast'' with no set itinerary.

Mum had an insatiable thirst for knowledge.

Holidays were for learning, with visits to the mayor's office, sawmills, flax mills, freezing works, ships at Bluff and countless other places of interest.

There were phone calls before these visits.

Mum rarely took prisoners and never took no for an answer!Cut to Westport, January 1963.

Mum has triumphantly returned from a visit to the State Coal office.

We were going down the Sullivan Mine at Denniston that afternoon.

''Stout'' shoes were all that was required.

This would be impossible in 2015, but things were more relaxed 50 years ago.

On the narrow and steep gravel road Dad worried about the car overheating but my interest and imagination were captured by the aerial ropeway carrying coal above the road and the incline railway which then carried the coal off the plateau 600m down to Waimangaroa.

At the mine site Mum's radar soon located our guide.

We were taken to a store and fitted out in leather miner's helmets with beautiful polished brass lamps producing a naked flame.

Walking through the mine entrance and down a long shallow drive with the new shift apprehension hit, but I was a 9-year-old of the world and no-one would have guessed!

This was my wonderland.

The sense of worthy men doing important work, the lamplight reflecting off the bright coal, the creaking timbers, the rumbling coal wagons, the noise of drilling equipment, glistening black faces and the leg pulling about banjo-playing miners will never be forgotten.

A shot had been set deep in the mine. Our visit was almost over. We reached the portal and hooters sounded.

A miner with a portable control box called to me.

''Hey, sonny, come and turn this handle then let it spring back''.

A few seconds later a thump was followed by a warm breeze as displaced gas escaped the mine.

I was beside myself with excitement.

Surely no other 9-year-old had ever been down a coal mine and been allowed to blow stuff up!

My career path switched from fire-engine driver to coal miner on the spot.

This had the makings of a great show and tell. It was and I did, but that's another story.

 Trevor Kempton is a civil engineer and Otago Regional Council councillor.

 


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