TRANSCRIPT

So what was that like you spent some of the time underground, that must have been quite hard being underground especially during the winter months for 8 hours?

Well most of the miners were very happy to go underground in the wintertime. It was 51 degrees down there all the time.

Yes I suppose.

And in the summertime, er? I spent a lot of time underground in Pugwash of course on maintenance. And I became the maintenance superintendent after a few years. On a real hot day when you come up the shaft, come up in the skip and you first step out on the collar of the mine, the heat hits you. It's something like coming out of a department store after you've been in there for a while. People working in department stores have a hard time; it's an awful quick change. It seems a lot hotter than it is but you know what it feels like. But if you're down there for 8 hours at 51 degrees and you come up into that you're quite happy. The main thing, even in the summertime it's nice and cool and in the wintertime it's nice and warm.

And you said conditions were good down there?

Oh yes. In Pugwash you had electric lights; you had some in Malagash too of course. And every miner has a lamp on his belt, a battery on his belt and a lamp on his hat anyway. And when you're working on machines and crawling underneath and stuff, you can take that off. And there's emergency lights that automatically come on the same as they do everywhere else underground.