To hell and back

IN THE early hours of May 29, 1951, Tommy Houghton was woken by banging on his door in George Avenue, in the pit village of Easington Colliery. A member of the area's mining Rescue Brigade, Tommy, 36, had been called out many times before and, on that morning, was instructed to report to the team's usual setting off point - the weigh cabin at the pit head.

Told to bring with him his pit clothes and lampcap, Tommy borrowed a shilling from his wife Elsie for a cup of tea and made his way through the darkened rows of colliery houses to join up with his team members, Tommy Curry, Johnny Lowe, Matty Moralee and Ronnie Greenwell.

He was still unaware of where the rescue party was heading as he neared the silhouetted pit head overlooking the North Sea. But when he saw a crowd gathered in the colliery yard he knew instantly that the rescuers would be travelling no further than their own place of work. And the news that a massive explosion had ripped through the Five Quarter seam district, known as the Duck Bills, confirmed his fears.

But the highly-trained team knew they had a job to do and, side by side, they silently checked their breathing apparatus.

"We were the first team to arrive and we went down first. When we got to the fresh air base, the manager, Mr Hopkins, a government inspector, a doctor and a fire officer were waiting for us, " Tommy recalls.

With their breathing equipment in place, the five made their way to the stricken workings.

In a tragic twist of fate, the blast occurred as two shifts were merging and during the hand-over there had been 81 men in the Duck Bills. None would survive and the death toll rose further when two members of an outside rescue team also perished.

Hardened though they were through their dealings with underground incidents all over the region, none of Tommy's team were prepared for the nightmare they were about to encounter. Their instructions were to act as a reconnaissance unit for following teams, to examine the damage and not to touch any of the bodies lining the silent seam.

"We only had two hours with our breathing apparatus and that was the absolute limits of use by law. We weren't allowed to go over that time, even if it meant we had to sacrifice a human life, '' explains Tommy.

As they crawled and clawed their way through the debris they were faced with body after body - miners who would later be identified by their metal belt tags in a makeshift mortuary in the pit stables.

As their two-hours began to run out and they started to make their way back, they heard the faint sound of moaning. But they had their orders and had to continue back to the fresh air base where they recounted what they'd heard.

Tommy says: "The pit manager told us: 'Go back and get him. If we get one out alive it will give all the people on the surface more hope'.

"But the fire officer barked out his orders: 'They're not going back in, not for my life. If they're sent back in I will be tried for murder'."

A message was sent to the surface to see if the new rescue team had arrived - it hadn't. Now weeping, the manager pleaded: "Get one out alive, give them a bit more hope.'' Tommy remembers: "I took over then and I said, 'I say we go back', and I asked the others. They all nodded.'' Returning to the seam, they found 18-year-old Matty Williams, barely alive. Tommy says: "We found a bit of canvas and lifted him onto it using hand signals to each other because we couldn't speak for the breathing apparatus. We carried him out to the fresh air base where the doctor took over, but we all knew Matty was past help.'' With their stint up, the five rescuers went home.

"We went back about midnight, but we were just carrying bodies out, " says Tommy. "The worst part was that at the kist, the deputies' station, bodies were just piled up. There was about 14 of them who had just been sitting there when it went up.'' Tommy was also one of the first rescue workers to reach the seat of the explosion by the shearer machine on the Five Quarter Main.

"We found the body of the machine operator crouched behind one of the supports. He must have seen what was coming.'' Tommy says it was well known at the time that shoddy work practices operated in the Five Quarter Main seam in a drive to get more coal out quickly.

"They always said The Ducks was sure to go and it did.'' After the explosion the Duck Bills district was bricked up never to be worked again.

Everyone in the village had lost a relative or friend and Tommy was among the hundreds who lined the streets at funeral after funeral. Two months later Tommy, his team mates and rescue workers from another team, including David Whitfield, Sam Watson, James Burnham and John Foster, were honoured at a special dinner and presented with commemorative gifts.

Tommy, who had left school at 14 on a Friday night and began work in the pit the following Monday, worked as a miner until he was 65, becoming a colliery deputy.

Still living in the same house in George Avenue he bought for £150, he has only now begun to reveal his nightmare memories. He has always been a hero to his family, but through his words, others may know of the heroism of those rescue workers who went to hell and back to bring out the bodies of their fallen marrers at the coalface.