Lummy and Ron

Its 19 years on Friday 25th since the Beaconsfield disaster/rescue.
Lummy and Ron knew from personal experience the hazards of underground mining.
Their story is connected to Todd and Brant’s via the medal tag board.

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​Source: Daily Mail/Getty Images

Some partnerships emerge almost unannounced and then quietly recede before we can grasp their true essence. Lummy was a big bloke. Strain creased his every being as he levered his tin leg into reluctant motion. On some occasions this simply proved too much and he stumped crutches under his armpits and immediately adopted a more relaxed persona. Sweat was ever present on his forehead - a condition more to do with over imbibing at the RSL club than concerted physical effort. Lummy loved a drink. He also loved a verbal stoush: A legacy perhaps of going off to war in the African desert and returning safely only to encounter the treachery of mining and an accident that left him suspended upside down with a mangled leg and subsequent amputation. Lummy always looked grim – but laughter was never far away. Upon being regaled by a Kiwi desert veteran’s tale of scarcity - “They only gave us three sheets of toilet paper - one up, one down and a polisher” - Lummy peered ruefully into his tea. “We used to shave in the dregs” he reflected. “It was either that or a dry shave in all that bloody sand.” I couldn’t imagine Lummy without a thirst. Dryness was a constant theme - humour wise and James Boag wise. Both combined one night to land him in serious trouble. A visitor to the RSL took offence and without knowing Lummy’s perpendicular limitations promptly flattened him and then proceeded to put the boots in.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Lummy chortled. “The bastard kicked me in the tin leg.”

Ron was older and much shorter than Lummy. He too had borne his share of misfortune. “I’ve lost one, of nearly everything you have two of, that you can’t see,” he once confided: “Knacker, lung and kidney.”  There was something irresistible about Ron. Stooped like a Bookie’s clerk he was always on for a quick chin wag before waving a brisk cheerio and moving on to the next task. A chronicler of all things Rosebery - particularly ancient sporting legends and feats of physical toughness he provided a connectedness that communities like ours took for granted then and sadly miss now.

In the sixties and early seventies men like Lummy and Ron were commonplace. Past their physical prime they adapted readily to clerical work and other sedentary tasks and were generally welcomed by employers as knowledgeable and reliable. Lummy dominated the time keeper’s office – his large frame and sprawling tin leg covering all the strategic points of his tiny work place. The more ambulatory Ron became his assistant at the end and start of shift. Their primary task was to check the medal boards and record which mining parties were underground and where they were located. At the end of shift Lummy was there to ensure that they had all tagged off.

Together they had established a comfortable routine. Ron would read the tagged names on the board and Lummy would check them off. Men from all nations were recorded on these timesheets. When confronted with a Polish surname of twelve consonants and one vowel their improvisation of ‘Billy Alphabet’ became the name Bill eventually answered to and which all came to know him by.

Bill himself was quite a character. Many miners lived in the single men’s quarters and walked to work. When queried by the chief mining engineer as to why he had a poor attendance record Bill is reputed to have said in fractured English and falsetto voice, “But Darrell I only not come when it rain.” An extraordinary excuse you might say when you live and work in a cool temperate rain forest.

Some names they wrapped their tongues around with practised skill. A young Greek miner was one of these. When helping Ron out one day he glibly pronounced PIM – EN – EYE - DIS to me. To most Rosebery men this was Con the wog. Billy Alphabet’s name was truly unpronounceable to the Anglo Saxon tongue. Con’s was not and they paid him the respect of getting it right. In their own quiet way they worked the angles and pegged the shirkers, the battlers and the guns. They also knew the hazards which confronted these men and to which their own bodies were living testimony.

When Brant Webb and Todd Russell walked out of the Beaconsfield mine and collected their tags I was reminded of those who worked at Rosebery in the early to mid seventies who never had the same luck.
Seen, Butters, Baldock, Lenane, Trevor and Pimenides. These tags were never collected by the men who left them there. Each one a separate accident. Each one another mining tragedy.

I like to think that when Larry Knight and Richard Carleton arrived at the Pearly Gates there were a couple of blokes waiting to tag them in. A sweaty big bloke on crutches and a perky little bloke with a pencil behind his ear.

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Smithy - The Wrong trousers

 

Underground dunnies were never destined for the cover of House and Garden.
Nor were they forgiving in any way for wearing the wrong trousers.

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​Image – IMDb
For obvious reasons – hygiene and odour in particular - cans were taken out from underground and emptied into the local council sewerage system. At the Rosebery mine Lenny Bott was in charge of retrieval and disposal. One did not wish to offend Len who could on occasion be found eating a sandwich on top of a batch of full cans whilst being hauled up the main shaft and who might accidently spill the odd one down your manway if he was feeling vengeful. Botty was a maddie. You humoured him. You bought his raffle tickets for a dressed duck although you never ever heard of any winner.
Brian Smith was a popular miner. A fine schoolboy footballer and even better boxer, Smithy had a slight stammer. The 12 level miners loved to rib him and called him Putt Putt. To which he would wearily answer. The conventional attire for miners in the 1970’s were blue bib and brace overalls and a grey flannel. Smithy preferred to wear jeans. He did so for years until out of the blue he turns up resplendent in a new pair of bib and brace. Well they give it to him and as usual, he takes it well until he reappears at crib time – with bib and braces missing! One can only imagine his despair. Habituated to years of slipping down the jeans and sitting on the throne. Ah those pesky braces. Severed by an axe and left to be buried and eventually retrieved by the honourable Mr Leonard Bott.
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      Conclave

         

            Nobody does politics like the Catholics.
            They have been at it for over 2000 years.

 

Source: Medium
Cardinals in silk birettas - but still men and all too human. Men with ambitions, jealousies and doubts. My grandmother looked after the parish priest and the St Joseph nuns in Rosebery. She saw them as human and was always respectful and discreet. She was never pious, never preached and she loved watching Dave Allen. The dying Pope in Conclave says to Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes in a wonderful performance) that he has lost his faith. ‘Not to God. No. In the Church.’ There are some terrific lines in this film. ‘Certitude can never bring about unity’ ‘Elect a Pope who doubts’.  I had my doubts from a very early age. I am sure I lost my faith in the Church first. They put a powerful amount of work into you when you are young. Of course if you are ‘lapsed’ it does not mean there is no doubt.
Does it?
Song: (I was born into) Original Sin