South Croft Tin Mine a tale from Clies Stevens

THE WAY ‘OVE UN PARD! by Clies Stevens

arts and culture - tin mining in Cornwall

A strange way to begin a bit of prose, but you see it expresses exactly how I felt that Monday morning in May 1961 as I stepped into the cage at South Crofty tin mine to begin a career underground. I was 14 years and 9 months old, barely out of nappies as grandfather was wont to say, and so bloody scared! There was no other way to describe it, because I was put right at the back of the ‘cage’ for my own sake, and then these huge hard muscled men crowded into the cage in two’s and three’s stamping onto the 3 mm steel plate that was the floor.

Engine house near Rinsey West Cornwall click to enlarge

The cage bounced as they crowded in, the cable taking up the weight as unconcerned as the grass growing off site. It had looked very thin as I had watched others crowding into that metal rectangle, the Lander calling out the ‘stations’ to the assembled crowd of men at the pit head.

240! 260! The numbers where called off for the different levels and my brain numbly registered the fact that the ‘Lander’ was calling out ever deeper levels.

Cornish mines then were measured in their depth by the old standard of ‘FATHOMS’, and there was 6 foot in one fathom or if you really must 1.81 meters. Our mines had long been worked on the old nautical system, we had mine ‘Captains’, depths in fathoms drill steels were made in ½ a fathom or 1 fathom lengths and so on.

It was not my turn yet to go below even though the level I was assigned to was 240, the contractors, the men who drilled and blasted at the face with all their drill steels freshly sharpened and tooled from the blacksmiths shop came first, they could have quite some way to go before getting into the ‘face’ or ‘stope’. (More of this later) For now I thought back to the inevitable steps that had brought me here today.

Growing up in St.Ives our council house had a magnificent view across the bay, to Godrevy light and the eastern shores of the bay, and I would often see a huge plume of what looked like white smoke rising in regular bursts from some magical spot far up the county. This was the steam exhaust from Crofty mine, the engine was worked from oil fired boilers and could pull effortlessly all day and night without a break, but at the age of ten with a grandfather who wove magical stories of Dragons and princes for me I excitedly asked my Father if this was indeed the lair of Mortlaok, for the hill behind was the highest as far as I could see.

“No cheeld” he said patiently, “ Thas Crofty mine weth that darn gret steam engine up there puffing away.”

This was the first occasion I had heard about the great Crofty steam engine and plagued him to explain, and to do this he took me to see it!

A very good friend of his was one of the ‘whim drivers’ of this veritable Leviathan, so he packed some dried Ling and salt cod (very tasty I can assure you) and we rode up to Camborne or as he said it ‘kambern’ on his old motorbike and we went to see Charlie. Charlie’s working day was spent in the most incredible place in the whole world to a young boy, to describe it as fascinating would do it a huge injustice!

From the outside as father put the old Enfield up on her stand it was a grey painted wooden building, with two black greasy looking ropes coming out from the front and shooting up to the top of the pit head gear at Robinson’s shaft on South Crofty mine, seemingly low key.

Until that is one heard the Dragon breath! It was a slow sssssshhhhhhh tuuu! Ssssshhhhh tuu! Getting faster and faster the ropes vibrating with the strain and making slapping sounds as they hit the ‘block’ which prevented the wire from ripping the front of the shed apart. Huge plumes of steam rose from the exhaust above the ‘whim house’ surely there was a real dragon in here!

Father pushed the dried fish into my shaking hands and opened the door and waved to someone deeper in the building and then beckoned me up the steps and into the lair of the fire wizard. This was a place that was painted white on all the walls and ceiling. (White so as to show any oil spray from broken or worn parts I later learned)

The engine itself was painted in the most beautiful gleaming emerald green, and seemed to be highly polished, the brass and copper parts burnished until they looked like gold, the huge terrifying pistons that rammed out so fast you though they would never stop but smash out through the flimsy front of the ‘whim house’ but they never did!

Magically those huge gleaming steel rods as thick as a mans arm were so delicately balanced that they meekly submitted to the touch of the master himself, Charlie Buzza whim driver. Things whirred and hissed, steel balance bobs whirred so fast I felt they would explode, the highly polished steel balls on the regulating gear whizzed around as Charlie controlled the awesome power in a nonchalant manner; as though he had not enough destructive power coiled up and looking for the slightest chance to let go and destroy the engine house and most of the surface works of the pit head!

And then the smell! That magical, mystical smell of hot oil and steam mixing safely, the warm smell of hot metal and enamel paint and other indefinable smells all mixed in that tantalised the nose of a ten year old boy so! My eyes must have looked like organ stops I suppose and Charlie Buzza to me was a veritable god. AND my father knew him! Well we spent the next few hours there and I remember to me it seemed like just a few minutes the time went past so quickly.

Charlie was very pleased with his gift, Nancy (our mum) was very good at drying the cod and ling, and Charlie dearly loved his bit of ‘Maiden Ling.’ Before the time was all over Charlie had sort of explained to me the basics of the steam powered engine, and it puzzled me so how the steam expanded so fast to do the work.

I had asked Charlie about this, and he had looked at our Dad as he pushed at the pedals and pulled levers seemingly without looking, his hands must have eyes in his fingers I thought. He gradually slowed the gleaming beast down to the demands of the ringing bell from the ‘Lander’ at the pit head, and said to me “ Well now pard, I caint rightly tell ee how or why it do work really, cos after all tes only bleddy watter, but thas the way ob em pard”

From that day on I was determined to be like my forebears, fisherman and miners all, and that was the start of me standing in the cage at 0600 on that day as these giants among men squeezed into the cage and kept me safe. How did I manage? That can keep for another day and another story.

Clies Stevens 2005 [back to arts and culture] [more pages on tin mining in cornwall]