Thursday, January 16, 1862: THE Hester Pit's backshift are at work, the foreshift on their way outbye: the first 16 men at bank, eight more in a following cage.

The gaunt pit-head next to the Blyth & Tyne railway, a stone's throw from Hartley Junction, overshadows an L-shaped hamlet of two cottage rows and a chapel.

Coal has long been worked here but the original pit was abandoned to flooding in the 1840s, and the Hester sunk north of the old colliery. Today's operating seam is the Low Main, 560ft down, below the Yard Seam. The High Main above that is now out of regular use.

Like some other pits the Hester has only one shaft. After complaints the owners linked the Low Main to the Yard Seam by a narrow "staple' shaft with a ladder. A staple housing the colliery's top pumps links the High Main to the surface, under one end of the 42-ton cast-iron engine beam, 34ft 6in long.

The other end is over the main shaft, connected to the lower and middle set of pumps. The 400hp engine is one of the most powerful in the North, delivering 1,157 gallons a minute.

The shaft, 12ft 3in across and lined with timber, is divided by a brattice or partition of 3in planking. The upcast side takes the middle and bottom pumps, the other a couple of two-deck cages.

The eight men now ascending are George Sharp and his 16-year-old son George, William Sharp, William Brown, Ralph Robson, Ralph Robinson, Robert Bewick, and Thomas Watson; all except the youngster are married, with families.

The time is nearly 11 a.m., the cage halfway up the shaft . A resounding crack and a loud grumbling echo from above. A great weight hits the cage and wrenches away two corner chains, hurtling past into the depths, a thunderbolt in a hail of wreckage, piling up a deep jam of debris across the shaft, 60ft beneath the broken and dangling cage. Four pitmen have been flung out into the black void.

The survivors try to light a candle, but water is pouring down the shaft. George Sharp can hear his son's voice calling below, and is set on climbing down, despite his own injuries; but Tom Watson says he will do it. In the pitch darkness Tom gropes for footgrips and handgrips, a rope here, a plank there, until he reaches the lad, half buried in the debris, and dying; but young Geordie's only thought is for his injured father. Bob Bewick is dying nearby.

Tom Watson, a recent chapel convert, prays with them, and leads a hymn, until both are silent in death. He finds he is too weak to climb back. The engine beam has snapped in half, stabbing a 21-ton spear into the eye of the pit and ripping away most of the brattice along with pumps and other gear. All the backshift and most of the foreshift, 204 men and boys, are trapped without ventilation or pumps to stop the water rising.

The only present hope is that they can escape from the Low Main up the staple ladder into the Yard Seam, with the backshift men's untouched bait for food, and perhaps the pit ponies' grain. After initial paralysis at the pit-head flooding or explosion a likely hazard, a blocked shaft terrifyingly improbable the colliery enginewright is leading a rescue attempt.

Using jack engines and crab ropes men can descend the pumping staple into the High Main, with its upper access to the shaft. After great difficulty ropes at last haul up William Sharp and Ralph Robinson: but George Sharp cannot hold on, and falls to his death, landing near his son's body. Tom Watson will be dragged up from the depths, fainting into his rescuers' arms, 11 hours after the disaster.

The womenfolk of Hartley, and men flocking to the pit, face a long week of suspense and heartbreak, sustained at first by reports of "jowling," rappings by the entombed men: but the sounds are a delusion. Led by the celebrated master-sinker William Coulson of Durham who has sunk more than 80 mine shafts the rescuers will later have to break off to make the shaft sides safe, and then to cope with gas.

The first bodies discovered next Wednesday in the Yard Seam will reveal that all the victims have been asphyxiated within hours today, not long after half-past two, to judge by the deputy back overman's pocketbook note of a prayer meeting held by half-a-dozen men.

Family grief of identification is to be eased by a tally lad who knows all 204 men and boys. A funeral cortege more than four miles long will include three or four coffins from some homes, five from one cottage, seven from another 407 dependents left penniless: but all classes of the nation, from the Queen to a blind pitman, dukes to dustmen, City financiers and working people everywhere, are to raise £79,750 in six months (some £2.5m in 1980s value).

A £20,000 surplus in two years' time is to be passed to other coalfields. Parliament will play its part by banning single shafts in collieries. The Hester Pit is to be abandoned.