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

Part two of our new memory of the month feature with retired plant man William Peters telling us how things used to be in his own words with period photos from the Digger Man Blog archives.

Rock armour at Oddicombe beach late 1960s

Oddicombe beach at Babbacombe is notorious of late for various properties falling over the cliff, but way back there was a problem with the sea undermining the cliff and therefore the road to the left of the beach looking seaward. It was decided that some rock armour was required but the road down to the beach was like an alpine road very steep with severe sharp bends and quite impassable for a larger vehicle, so how to get the rocks to the beach.

Pictured above and below: International TD7 or TD8 from Digger Man Blog archives.

Whites were given the job and the only possible way to do it was to push the rocks over the cliff edge.  The iron railings at the top were removed and the lorries were to bring in the largest rocks they could carry or the quarry could load, so they would bring one or two at a time and I was to push them over the edge.  For this task I had a IH TD7 a small dozer, the doors were removed and an extra gallon of oil put in the engine so the back bearing wouldn’t run dry, as it was direct drive transmission (gearbox & clutch) no chance of damage there. 

At the top of the site the ground was almost flat so the rocks dug right in when tipped out and no chance of rolling down without help, so I get behind and start pushing but as the ground got steeper and steeper my feet were on the dash to keep me in the seat, but the rocks were still refusing to go quietly until at last gravity took control and they were gone, now you may think why didn’t he give them a kick by lifting the blade but there’s the rub, because it was so steep I couldn’t lift the blade because the back end lifted up and the blade stayed on the ground creating too much drag for me to reverse back.

Pictured above: A much larger International TD30 from the Whites Plant fleet. Digger Man Blog archives.

Fortunately for me Horace and Les had given me a guardian angel in the shape of a colleague at the top with another TD7 fitted with a winch so he pulled me back up until I could get a grip and this is how we carried on for a few weeks until the job was done, of course we left the cable hitched up all the time and luckily the weather was dry and sunny.  I did wonder if I had ever had to bail out whether I would have made it or if I would still have rolled over the cliff.  No injuries or damage were done. Health & safety was still twenty years away and as one of my recent jobs were risk assessments applying the EU rules I can easily see the above job never getting done, unless they brought the rocks in from Norway by barge.

PS: One thing I forgot to mention last month about the JCB4c was that it was built around a Fordson Major tractor with uprated back wheels to carry the weight unfortunately they didn’t uprate the studs and twice I had the studs shear and the wheel fell off as I was driving along the road once at a set of traffic lights in Plymouth, you can imagine the chaos.  Prior to this they were called J.C.Bamford Hydra diggers and were really ugly looking tools but it was early days. If you missed part one of Bill's memory series you can find it by clicking on this link.