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Mike Nesbitt

ONCE known as the Pommy tobacco chewer, this week’s longwall larrikin has since left the habit behind and is now concentrating his efforts on converting everyone to Newcastle United supporters. Mike Nesbitt, Crinum longwall mechanical maintenance coordinator, has a colourful and varied history in the UK and Australian longwall sector.

Angie Tomlinson

Mike started as a mining apprentice with British coal in 1969 and received his mechanical apprenticeship at Hatfield Colliery two weeks later. He stayed at Hatfield for 13 years before emigrating to Australia.

Determined not to work in a mine again he did a bit of contract work before joining Westfalia mining company in 1983 in its hydraulics department. However, destiny was calling and Mike ended up servicing equipment at Appin and John Darling mines and later the installation of Coal and Allied’s Liddell longwall.

In 1986 he joined Dowty as a longwall service engineer in the Newcastle area and adopted the motto “have boots will travel” – covering Singleton, Mudgee and basically anywhere in Queensland. “It was a great experience and I met a lot of good people on the way,” he said.

In 1988 Mike joined Blackwater as the Queensland service engineer and was involved in the longwall installations at Cook, Southern, Oaky Creek and service cover at Central. Mike then moved to Emerald and joined Gordonstone Coal in 1991 where he became the longwall maintenance engineer until the sale to Rio Tinto’s Pacific coal in 1998. He stayed on after the take over by Pacific Coal until June 2003 when he joined BMA’s Crinum mine as the longwall mechanical maintenance coordinator.

ILN:What is your earliest mining memory?

MN: As a schoolboy in 1968 I went on a visit to the local mine in my village. We went to a longwall that was about 1.2m high and watched coal being cut by a trepanner shearer. I was overwhelmed by the whole experience now I knew what my dad worked on.

ILN: What made you choose mining as a career?

MN: All my mates went to the mine because it payed better than anywhere else. My first wage was five pounds and my mother let me keep it all.

ILN: What was your favourite job in a coal mine?

MN: Working on the surface boiler plant at Hatfield in winter - you were always warm. It was noisy but the people were great, they used to play practical jokes on each other and made work fun.

ILN: What was your least favourite job?

MN: Working on the wash plant at Hatfield Main colliery, UK. It was cold, it was wet, it was noisy, and you had to climb mountains of stairs to get there - it was bloody awful.

ILN: Who, or what, has most influenced your mining career?

MN: I guess my father, who was the Nacods union delegate at Hatfield. He gave me good advice when I needed it and helped me to get to where I am now. Julian Hoskins, who I first met at Cook colliery, influenced my move back into a mine full time at Gordonstone, where we met up again some years later where he became the longwall manager - a great bloke to work with.

ILN: What do you consider your best mining achievement?

MN: When I was working for Dowty as its Queensland service engineer in the late 1980’s I got a call from Central colliery telling me they were in trouble after they had just broken through into a pre-driven take off road. They couldn’t stop the shields from yielding. It took me almost two hours to drive there from Blackwater, then go underground to the longwall. After a quick inspection I was able to solve the problem and they were able to stop the movement. Probably not the greatest achievement but I felt quite good about it and the mine management were very appreciative.

ILN: What do you see as being the greatest mining development during your career?

MN: To have come from a mining environment where everything was basic - no automation, more than 2000 people working, multiple longwall operations and production targets less than one million tonnes per year - to single fully automated longwall operations with production in excess of five million tonnes with about 200 people working at the mine.

ILN: Do you hold any mining records?

MN: Not personally, but I have been involved with some big production mines over the years.

ILN: Do you have any unfulfilled ambitions?

MN: To win lotto and retire to the coast.

ILN: What was your most embarrassing moment in a coal mine?

MN: I was an apprentice and was with the engineer taking some long flat wear strips into the longwall. The engineer told me he would put the strips on the bottom belt and I was to go to the belt boot scraper and when the strips were in sight to stop the belt. When the strips were in sight I pulled the pull wire but the belt did not stop. I was frantically pulling the pull wire as the strips went past me and around the tail pully. I had pulled the pull wire for the rope haulage by mistake. Fortunately we did not tear the belt but the job was stood for some time as the wear strips had wrapped around the pulley. I never forgot it and neither did the engineer.

ILN: What was your scariest time in a coal mine?

MN: The mine I worked in the UK had two deep shafts (900 metres) that had to be inspected daily, water garlands cleaned out and guide ropes manually greased. This was always done on night shift. You had to stand on the top of the cage hooked by a safety harness to the detaching hook chains. To grease the guide ropes you had to dip your hand in the grease bucket and lightly grip around the static rope as the cage slowly lowered down the mine. Every now and then dollops of grease would fall off the ropes and hit you - not a nice feeling. From time to time when the two cages met mid shaft you would signal to stop, then jump from one cage to the other. To clean out the garlands a wooden plank would be fed out, three men would stand on one end as one person stepped out into the shaft with safety harness hooked to a hand rail on the cage. They would then reach out with a type of hoe and scrape out the garlands. It scared me every time I had to do it.

ILN: What is your worst memory of coal mining?

MN: For me it was the strike in the UK in 1984. It affected

my family and friends back home (it got pretty heavy in the village), and highlighted the stupidity of government and union officials. God knows what might have happened to me if I had not emigrated. They actually made a documentary of the events in my village 20 years on and all the people in it were people I grew up and worked with.

ILN: Do you think that the day of the fully automated remotely operated face is near?

MN: It would be nice but I don’t think conditions will allow it. I think the technology is close to being capable, so I guess someone will do it somewhere just to prove it can be done.

ILN: What major improvements would you like to see on longwall operations?

MN: A simple effective means of removing dust from the coalface.

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