Memory of the month the way things were (Part Nine)

Continuing with our regular memory of the month blog featuring the memories of retired plant operator William "Bill" Peters with period photos from the Digger Man Blog archives, 

The most dangerous job I’ve done and other snippets.

I was sent with the D9 to a quarry at Cheddar Gorge, and just getting there proved to be pretty dodgy as the road up to top of the quarry was hellishly steep. The tractor unit was a Leyland Mammoth Major 6x4, It was early evening when we arrived and as we crept up the hill the driver was in bottom gear and full throttle, he said I don’t think we’re going to make this, looking out of the door I could easily count the wheel nuts going round and the exhaust manifold and pipe was glowing cherry red.  It was clear that if he stopped he could never hold it on the hill and would run away backwards, looking back I see a car right up behind us so jumping out I ran back and made the driver go backwards hopefully out the way and told him be ready to run sideways out of the way if the low loader stopped.

Painfully slowly he kept creeping up and up until at last the road began to level out and we safely arrived at the very top, a long cool down period was needed, I haven’t mentioned before that we always moved the D9s with the blade on so quite heavy for lorries of the time. When loading the machines we just used three blocks of wood, one under the trailer and two to give the tracks a lift relying on the driver for directions as we couldn’t see the trailer from the cab, now it’s just drop the neck and drive straight on. Looking over the edge of the quarry I could see it had three faces and to the left side had suffered a really huge landslip, halfway down the slope there was an old box scraper that had been left there and I believe some of the belts and equipment had been buried at the bottom level, it had obviously been a very serious event.

Next day the quarry manager came up to tell me what they wanted done, as they were hoping to get a contract to supply The Steel Company of Wales with high quality limestone for steelmaking he wanted me to remove thirty feet off the top of the quarry one width of the blade at one end and three widths at the other end.  This meant that I would never be able to get square to the face and always be at an acute angle to it, an added complication was that the grain of the rock was laying towards the edge so as the blade pushed over the edge it just fell away leaving daylight under the blade and the right hand track idler right on the edge, I can tell you this gets your adrenalin going. 

Several times I had to leave it and do something else until I calmed down and went back to have another go until I eventually got down to the required depth, I was bloody glad to leave it I tell you, I never heard if they got the contract and as this was the most dangerous job I ever did I hope it was worth it. The other part of the job was to landscape the top of the quarry by spreading a huge pile of overburden over the top of the quarry to landscape the whole area which was right on the skyline, then spread top soil over it so they could plant trees, so the quarry would be hidden from view as people drove down Cheddar Gorge.

So getting stuck in and as it was a long push I decided to let the overspill from the blade build up so that it looked like giant potato banks each side thus allowing me push about three blade fulls at once so more efficient.

About eleven o’clock the manager came to see how I was doing and he didn’t look happy, he said you do know what we want! Yes, landscape the skyline and cover with soil so you can plant trees, that’s right he said, I replied come back tomorrow at four o’clock and I’ll be just about finished,  Well four o’clock came and I was just back blading the last bit and I have to say it really looked good as it had been dry for some time so the soil spread beautifully, just then the manager arrived and as he jumped out of the landrover his face was a picture he said that’s great just what we wanted, it’s a pleasure to see a man take a pride in his work, I replied thank you very much (pause) but that won’t pay the grocer will it, that was just an off the cuff remark goodness knows why I said it.  Ha he said stay here I’ll be back, well he returned about ten minutes later with £25 that was about half a week’s wages it those days so very welcome and everyone was happy. The Co-Operator