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Interview with Allen Horder, Miner, Teralba Colliery
CAUTION: This recording contains coarse language
This interview is one of a series relating to Teralba Colliery and the amalgamation of Stockton Borehole Colliery with Teralba Colliery in 1988.
SummaryAllen’s mining career was almost over before it began. A loco driver early on, an incident with a runaway loco landed him in hospital in traction for five months and off work for another five. And he admits returning from this, he didn’t have much better luck up on pit top, taking up where his father left off on retirement, with “button jobs” as he ruefully called them. However, sticking with it, it was six months or so after the closure of Hebbon in 1972 that “the job come up at Stockton Borehole, and that’s when I kicked off there.” Transferring to Teralba in 1988, Allen worked with the “bolting machine, the Wombats they call them,” doing what he believed was the most dangerous job there, bolting up the roof out in front of the miner. He also recalls of his time there, the nefarious rats: hanging dead from equipment; chewing through lunch bags, running over you when you snoozed at crib time; and even of one rat, who a worker adopted on weekends. And open day, taking the kids down the pit so they could experience the wonder of it being “blacker than black.” And of the tree ferns and petrified wood that could be found running through the coal seam. And of mateship. And lastly, of a love for night shift; “Yeah I loved it. I’d go over in the morning, at the hotel across the road here and have a couple of beers, come home and have lunch, lay down for a while.”SubjectCoal mines and mining -- New South WalesIndustrial relations -- New South WalesTeralba Colliery, Teralba (N.S.W.)Stockton Borehole Colliery, Teralba (N.S.W.)Pacific Colliery, Teralba (N.S.W.)Macquarie Colliery, Teralba (N.S.W.)The AmalgamationOut the Gate in 88Miners' Federation of AustraliaHorder, AllenDepicts or Relates ToTranscript of Interview with Allen Horder, Miner, Teralba CollieryCreatorBelic, PetaHorder, AllenCollectionTeralba Colliery Oral History ProjectPlaceTeralba, NSWDate Created2006-07-05Location[1] Teralba CollieryIdentifierAllen_Horder