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Azzabuv

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This message was updated on 11/25/2004 2:47:32 PM by Azzabuv

 Coppice Colliery - Underground Disappearances
replied on: 11/25/2004 1:47:06 PM
This information concerning miners who had disappeared underground was related to myself and other miners several times over a decade.
When i first heard the accounts, i dismissed them as old miners scary 'Urban Legends', but as the tales were always related verbatim, we began to take notice of them.

The first incident occurred down the 1500 hundred foot deep (give or take a couple of hundred feet) Kilburn coal seam, in the 1930s.
An Undermanager failed to take his motty (a small metal disc, with your personal colliery identification number stamped on it) off the underground check-board at the end of the shift and hand it to the pit bottom's man-riding-cage onsetter as verification of having left the mine. This meant he was still down the pit somewhere.

As the hours passed and he still didn't report to the Onsetter, a search was undertaken of the tunnels and coal-faces to no avail.
The next day and over the following few days, all production ceased as a full-scale search was launched. According to the then Heanor Observer, police, with sniffer dogs were also brought into the search. Again to no avail.
Allegedly, a few mediums and psychics were taken down the Colliery as a last resort. One of the mediums reported that she could 'see' him chained to a roof support prop, set in an area of worked out ground. Consequently, all the gobbins were cleared and dug back to two weeks of past work areas behind the coal-face.
He was never found.

The alternative theory of him having disappeared underground, was one of him having colluded/connived with that particular cage Onsetter, who allowed him to enter the cage sometime on his own, with out needing his motty and disappear to a new life somewhere. As far as the miners were concerned over these two theories concerning his disappearance - you payed your penny and took your choice.

The second incident is more sketchy and apparently occurred in 1940 but down the several hundred foot deep Mickley seam, to a man named Garret(t)? He too, disappeared with out trace, or......?

I've checked the Society's indexes and given Newsletters which the index states under 'Miners Tales', but these cases are not mentioned. But Robert informs me that another case of underground disappearance occurred at Mapperley Colliery and is mentioned in Newsletter number 51.

If anyone lives fairly near to a library and has a few hours to spare - The Heanor Observer appears to be the one to look for and check for truthful verification or outright dismissal as a miners 'Urban Legend'.
Azzabuv.
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