the Big Bump at Number 2
by
Carol Marlene Smith
* * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Carol Marlene Smith at Smashwords
the Big Bump at number 2
Copyright 2011 by Carol Marlene Smith
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the BIG BUMP at Number 2
Springhill, Nova Scotia
On October 23, 1958 all hell broke lose in Springhill, Nova Scotia. No one knew at the time exactly what was in store for our unlucky town. Just two years prior an explosion had rocked the town, and one year after a fire devastated a large portion of the downtown area, leaving gaps on the main street of the town and over a million dollars in damage. Now, one year later, it was happening again. Would the bad luck never stop in this town?
I was born in Springhill but as a wee infant was taken to a farm where my parents and family lived. This farm was on the outskirts of Springhill, about ten or more miles away. I lived there with my family until I was five years old. Now at the age of sixteen, I was living in a community called Leamington, just a few miles from the town.
On that night of October 23, 1958, I was pushing my bike on the side of the road as it was an uphill grade and I didn’t prefer to ride my bike. I was almost home when I felt it. Under my feet was the strangest feeling, something I could not really explain. It was like the ground was churning inside itself. It happened quickly then was over as fast as it had begun. I did not know what it was. I continued on to my home and went in to watch TV.
In about an hour or so, I was still watching TV when the phone rang. We had a party line at the time and it was not our ring. All the phone rings were different. One had a long ring, another was a short ring, and others were two, three and four rings. Ours was three short rings. Within a few minutes, all rings except ours had jangled the phone. My mother, who was not one to listen in, could not help herself. She picked up the receiver after three or four calls had lit up the air, and listened in. She was not on the phone for long and dropped the receiver with a thud, which anyone on the line could have heard, but I don’t imagine any of the neighbours would have noticed or cared.
“Bump in the mine,” she yelled to my dad. I jumped up from the TV and hurried to the kitchen to see what she had to say to my dad who was having a cup of tea at the time. Sitting around the kitchen table we listened to my mom tell what she had heard.
“It’s the number 2 this time,” Mom said wringing her hands. “I just know that Billy is down there, he was on the afternoon shift this week.”
“Don’t Marion,” my dad said. “We don’t know anything yet.”
“What is a bump?” I asked my dad. “Why is it different from the explosion a couple of years ago?”
“It’s complicated,” my dad replied. “It’s a pressure build-up when the coal is removed. The strata which is shale and sandstone is strong, but the stress eventually affects the pillar system and they disintegrate, causing a bump to occur.”
I still didn’t have much of a clue what a bump was or why it was different from the explosion of 1956, so I continued, “But what’s the difference, doesn’t the bump make an explosion?”
“The bump is a collapse of the system, the explosion was caused by gas and coal dust. The mine train that hauled the coal dust up to the surface was hit by a flow of air coming down. The dust blew around and into the air shafts then some of the cars unhitched and ran back down the slope. There was a derailing of course and a power line was hit. The coal dust ignited and caused the explosion.”
“Were those pillars made of wood?” I asked.
“Nope. They’re pillars of coal. When you cut one block of coal you leave the adjacent block to help support the roof.”
I was almost as confused after his explanation as I had been before, but I figured you had to be down there at some point to probably understand the whole thing better.
“Everyone’s upset,” Mom said. “It’s crazy. I hate the mines. I never wanted Billy to go down there. I wanted him to get a good education. Kids never listen…”
“Marion.” Dad reached across and laid his hand over Mom’s and looked in her face. Mom’s blue eyes looked back at him. Both my parents had blue eyes, that’s where I got my blue eyes I guess. I noticed how pretty Mom looked, her cheeks were flushed which made her eyes so blue, her brown hair was hanging over her forehead. She pushed it back and looked away.
“We don’t know anything yet,” Dad continued. “It sounds bad, but remember all the survivors in ’56?” Now Dad was looking real serious, he shoved a hand through his greying hair. Mom got up and left the kitchen.
The phone kept ringing and I listened in a few times myself. I picked up the phone carefully and put it to my ear, placing my other hand over the mouth piece so as not to let people hear me breathing. As I stated earlier, it was probably not necessary to do because no one was really caring about an unwelcome listener that night. People were actually butting into conversations and it was probably one of the first five or six way phone conversation of it’s time.
“Betty,” I heard. “Is Ralph working tonight?”
“No,” Betty replied. “Thank God he’s on the day shift this week, but his brother Ben’s on the afternoon shift so he’ll be down there.” Her voice wavered and I could hear the fear in it. I was just beginning to realize the impact of this so called bump. I wanted to know more and noticed that my dad and mom were now perched in front of the radio hoping to hear some news reports.
Just as I was about to sit down across from my mom and dad, the phone rang again, and this time it was our ring. My mom got up and answered and called me to the phone. I was wondering who was calling me and took the receiver gingerly.
“Hello,” I said.
“Sue, can you come over? Did you hear about the mine?”
It was my best friend who lived just a few houses away. “I did,” I replied. “But I’m not sure I can leave right now. What’s up?”
“Well…my dad’s working today.”
That was all she had to say, and I heard the same fear and anguish in her voice as I had heard on the other phone conversations.
“I’ll be right over,” I said, and hung up the phone.
“I’m going over to Kathy’s,” I told my mom and dad. “She said her father is working today, so I guess I’d better go over.”
I walked across the fields behind the backs of the houses to her place. When I got there and went inside, Kathy was on the phone. Her mother was sitting on a rocking chair, just sitting there, staring straight ahead. She was older than my mom, and she wore her greying hair in a bun. I had seen it out before and it was very long. She used to take it out before she went to bed at night and brush it.
It was common I guess to always wonder when a person left their home and went down into the mine if they would ever be seen again alive. But that was the way mining was in that town. My dad had been a miner when I was born, but he didn’t stick to it, and he went back to farming. Now my brother was working in the mine, and Mom was sure he was working tonight. He used to work the night shift, but sometimes they switched around, so I tried to believe he wasn’t doing the afternoon shift today.
I walked in and sat down. There was a feeling of clammy coldness in the air, although it hadn’t seemed that cold outside when I was walking my bike up the hill and had felt the first tremors of the bump. Kathy got off the phone, she had been talking to her sister, and she told her mom that it sounded like a bad bump. I guess the town was in an uproar and I wanted to be there, but I had no way to get there and I knew I should be here with Kathy until she heard news of her father.
“Can I use the phone?” I asked Kathy, who nodded.
I called my parents and asked them if it was okay if I stayed over awhile as I didn’t know what was happening in town. My mom said it was okay and that she was worried about my brother.
“Are you sure he’s working this shift?” I asked her.
“Well I think so. This is his week for afternoon shift.”
I knew my mom was trying to be brave and I thought maybe I should be there with them.
“Do you want me to come home, Mom?”
“No, there’s nothing you can do here. Stay with Kathy, she probably needs you.”
I wanted to tell my mom about how Kathy’s mom was just sitting in the rocking chair staring straight ahead but I couldn’t as they would hear me. Not much privacy in those days when you made a phone call. So I hung up and wondered what I could do there to help, seemed that Kathy was just carrying on as usual. Her little niece was there because her grandmother looked after her most of the time, and she was only 3 years old.
By now it was going on 9 pm and the little girl was still up and running around in her day clothes. She ran to the fridge and got out a wiener, (not cooked) and shoved it in her mouth. The funniest thing happened though, she kept going over and tugging at her grandmother’s dress tail and saying, “Where’s Grandpa, Nana?” No one ever answered her. Her grandmother just ignored her, and Kathy was in the kitchen starting to cut up potatoes to make French Fries. Everything seemed a little weird there.
Finally I asked Kathy if she would like me to put the little girl to bed. Kathy got up and we went in the bedroom and she opened a drawer and took out some pyjamas. So I undressed the girl and tucked her in bed.
“Can you read me a story?” she asked me, her dark eyes looking into mine. Her name was Beth and she was cute. A little plump but still cute. I guess it was from eating all the time, whatever she seemed to want.
I looked around and didn’t see any books so I sat on the bed and told her a story. It was a funny one and she laughed and laughed. I decided it might not sound so good for her to be laughing so I made the story short and told her she had to go to sleep now. She had still been chewing on the wiener, so I waited until she had finished it and turned off the light. She surprised me by not making any noise at all and I guess she went straight to sleep.
I was feeling bored and wished I had the guts to say I had to go home, but here was Kathy alone with her mother who seemed to be in a trance. No wonder she was making French Fries. I went to the kitchen and helped her. After we had finished we ate them all then cleaned up. Then the phone rang again.
I saw Kathy’s mother jump up but she didn’t answer the phone, she just stared at it. I was thinking she was thinking it was probably bad news. So Kathy answered and it was her sister again. After some conversation, she pulled the phone from her ear and said to her mother, “Roberta wants me to baby sit. She wants to come out here.”
“She doesn’t need to come out here,” Kathy’s mother said bluntly.
“Well, then you talk to her then.” Kathy handed the phone to her mother but her mother just turned around and walked back to the rocking chair.
Kathy spoke to her sister then hung up. “She’s coming out.”
“She should stay home,” her mother spoke loudly and had a look of anger on her face.
I wished I wasn’t in the middle of it and longed to just go home. I thought maybe once Kathy’s sister got there, I could sneak my way out the door and go home. But that wasn’t to be. As soon as Roberta arrived she asked Kathy to go back with her to babysit. Kathy turned to me, looking a little mixed up and confused. “Will you go with me?”
What could I say? So I went. Roberta had two children, two girls, about five and six. I had known them for awhile now. So after we got there Roberta and her husband left again in their car. I didn’t know where they went, maybe to her mother’s, maybe to town to the pit head.
So the night was long. The girls were still up so Kathy had to get them cereal and milk then she told them to go to bed. But they didn’t want to. I guess they sensed that something was going on. That’s when we heard the news on the radio.
174 men were trapped in the mine 3,900 metres underground so they said. Apparently there was chaos and the mine manager Harold Gordon didn’t seem hopeful that anyone might survive. I looked at Kathy and her expression was dismal. I wondered if my brother might be one of those 174.
Kathy and I didn’t talk about it. She had a time getting the girls to stay in bed and then a knock came on the door while she was in the bedroom with them. I answered the door and it was her cousin. She was a couple years older than Kathy and I. She came in and had a glum look on her face. Both Kathy and her cousin looked alike, except her cousin was taller and bigger all over. Kathy was short so I guess they just looked alike in the face, both brown eyed and kind of swarthy complexions, but good looking in a way.
After Kathy finally got the girls to settle down, we three went into the living room. We started playing board games and cards. I wondered when Roberta was coming home. Once we got playing games, Kathy didn’t seem upset at all. She and her cousin were laughing and talking about boys. I didn’t feel like joining in, but I tried. My mind was on that mine pit and my brother.
I got up once and called home but Mom said she still hadn’t heard any news, just what she heard on the radio. And she said she called my brother’s house but there was no answer. That didn’t make me feel so good at all and I wanted ever so much to go home and just be alone.
The night dragged on and finally, the three of us all went into a bedroom and started getting ready for bed. I guess it was one of the girl’s bedrooms and the two of them were bunking up that night. I didn’t have any pyjamas so I just took my jeans off and slept in my shirt. I say slept, but sleep didn’t come easily. Kathy and her cousin gabbed and laughed and talked half the night. It was one of the longest nights I could remember. Finally everyone settled down and I went to sleep. We were all in one bed and there wasn’t much room.
Morning came and I had a stiff neck and felt lousy. We were up early as the girls were awake early. So we all got breakfast. By the time it was over, Roberta was back. There was now news on the TV about the bump. The announcer spoke of horrible upheaval and how the workings had been crushed like ants’ nests. It was being described as a hopeless situation. They mentioned the explosion that had happened in 1956, and how there had been a miracle at that time when 88 of the 127 miners in the explosion were saved. And they hoped there would be another miracle this time around.
Just as we were watching this Roberta and her husband came in the door. The look on their faces said all we needed to know. Roberta was looking straight ahead and her eyes were red and swollen and she was dabbing her nose with a Kleenex.
Kathy’s father was dead, that was plain to see. I didn’t see Kathy as she went in the bedroom, but Roberta’s husband asked me if I wanted to go home. I jumped at the chance and he drove me there.
When I got home my mom was in the kitchen baking something.
“Any news about Billy?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Well, why doesn’t Dad go in to his house and see if he is there or if anyone knows anything?”
“He is going in, but not yet. We called Bill’s neighbour and he said there was no movement over there and that Bill’s truck’s not in the yard.”
“So you think he was working?”
“I suppose he was.”
I walked over to give my mom a hug, but she sort of ignored me and kept on making her cake. I decided to go upstairs and take a bath. I was feeling grungy.
The rest of the day I watched the happenings on TV (of course there was no school) and I pretty much had a normal day. I watched as survivors came up from the mine and 75 of the 178 miners were rescued. Progress was slow while searching for the other men because of falling rocks and other debris.
I didn’t hear from Kathy and I thought I shouldn’t call and disturb the family. I wondered what Kathy’s mother was doing now. It had almost seemed as if she knew something had happened before we all did. That night right after supper my dad said he was going in town.
“Can I go along?”
“You should stay away from there,” my mom said. “I don’t want you going to the pit head.”
“But Mom, that’s where everything is going on.”
“You can go to town with me, but you can’t go to the pit head.” My dad had spoken.
So my dad and I went to town and he dropped me off on Main Street. I guess he was going to the mine pit and he said he would pick me up later. So I started walking down Main Street, and that little town was nothing like it normally was. I had no idea that so many people were interested in what happened there. It was just a little coal mining town, but the Canadian and International news media were all over it. One of the stores had a TV in the window and a loud speaker out to the street. I watched as a reporter said the town was now famous because it was the first major international event to give live television broadcasts from the scene of the disaster.
I thought about that for a minute…another disaster. I looked around and noticed that the town I was living in was not much of a town at all. The year before the fire had destroyed buildings and businesses. I remembered it well. It was just one day after Christmas and I had been living far out in the country. The phone once again had started jangling. We always knew something was up when the phone never stopped ringing. Of course we listened in again and heard all about the horrible fire in town.
I remember looking out the window and seeing flames over the treetops. It was pitch black out except for this wild and raging inferno that was called our town. Next day I recall driving in town to have a look. Everything was chard and smoking and there were big gaps in the town. Most of Main Street had actually disappeared! I recalled it was a cold and bitter day and the wind was blowing around cinders and stuff from inside the buildings that hadn’t completely been burned up. I heard that the fire started at the bottom of Main Street in a restaurant.
As I looked down Main Street the night of the bump I even saw the Army in town. I guess they were there to prevent riots or something because there were so many people in the town, and the traffic was like something I had never seen on Main Street before. There was even a helicopter that landed. I had heard later it was from the Navy and was carrying blood plasma. The television showed rescue teams from all over Cumberland County and also from Cape Breton Island and from Pictou County. All places that also had coal mines and had many experienced miners and rescue teams.
The TV also said that the premier of Nova Scotia at the time, Robert Stanfield, had visited the rescue site, and that Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh was coming to town! I couldn’t imagine Prince Philip coming to our little town of Springhill, but as I watched, this long stream of cars came down Main Street. Big black cars. Long black cars. And Prince Philip was in one of them. I didn’t see him but I was sure he was there.
After that I met up with another girlfriend who was walking up Main Street on the other side. She came over to where I was and we started walking up and down Main Street taking in the view and the complete chaos of it all. We spent sometime ogling the army guys. And they were not shy to speak to us also, flirting a little bit. We were just sixteen and giddy over boys, but in the back of my head was the memory that my brother was still not around. I wondered when my dad picked me up would he have news and would it be bad news. If all those miners were rescued earlier, maybe my brother would be rescued by now and my dad would come in the car and tell me that he was okay.
Finally my dad drove up Main Street and I waved him down. I left my girlfriend still wandering the streets and crawled in the car. My dad didn’t say anything so I didn’t either. I figured if he had news he would tell me. He didn’t look any different but I thought maybe he was holding it in to tell my mom first. It was a long drive home.
But when we got home my dad didn’t tell us any bad news. He just said that he wasn’t even sure my brother was now in the mine. It was hard to know who was down there and they could only go by the list of men that were scheduled to work. We lived in hope that my brother for some reason had not been one of the remaining trapped men.
The next day we had news that my brother’s name was on the list of workers that had gone down into the mine on that afternoon shift. My heart sank. But we carried on. There was nothing else we could do. Rescuers were working all the time to get to the trapped miners. We could only wait and hope.
I went to school but noticed that Kathy was not there. In fact there were a lot of kids missing from classes. The teachers were glum and most of the talk was of the disaster and what was going on. I didn’t hear anything new though except what I had seen on TV. On Wednesday, six days after the big rumble in the ground, there was excitement in the school and one of the teachers announced that the rescuers had made contact with a group of 12 miners on the other side of a big rockfall. The rescuers dug frantically but it took them until Thursday early morning before they broke through. All night I wondered if my brother would be one of them. But he wasn’t.
On Saturday another group of survivors were found. After they all were up and into the ambulances and taken off to the hospital, I knew I had not heard my brother’s name mentions. My throat had a big lump in it when I saw the first coffins being hauled up. Some folks in town were happy, and others were mourning. But all in all, even the happy ones were mourning also for their friends who they were never to see alive again.
74 miners were still missing or dead and accounted for. I was standing in front of the TV, my heart aching, my eyes clouding with tears, my mind leaping from my own despair to the despair of my parents who didn’t seem to be anywhere around at the time. Someone was at the door. Then someone was coming into the living room. I looked around and there, standing in the doorway was my brother.
“What are you doing here?” I said my eyes boggling out of my head.
“What kind of greeting is that?” he remarked and grinned at me.
“But we thought…”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You’re not…”
“I was hunting. I changed shifts with a buddy, and had a few days off.”
I ran and put my arms around him. By then my parents were coming down the stairs. My mom almost fell down them trying to get to the bottom faster. She grabbed my brother and hugged him so hard that he yelled, “Hey, I can’t breathe.”
My brother was just 23 years old and he never went back to work in the mines. I guess he figured he had been given a reprieve that day. Come to find out that the buddy who worked for him never came up out of the mine alive. Kathy and her family survived as did everyone else in Springhill. It was a sad time. Almost everywhere you looked on the streets in town, almost every house had a wreath on the door.
I left Springhill about two years after that, after I had finished school. It’s a town that had too much trouble, too much heartache, too much pain. Even in 1975 there was another big fire on Main Street.
And today when I visit there I can feel the ghosts of the miners as if they are wandering the streets, trying to get home, their black faces forever smeared with coal dust. The pick forever forged to their hand. Their miner lamps forever lit as they try to find their way out of the darkness and into the light with their lunch pails swinging,
The No. 2 colliery was one of the deepest coal mines in the world. The number 2 mine never opened again. These days all those mines are filled with water, and are used as a source of geothermal heat for some of the town’s industrial areas. Springhill was penned the hard luck town…small wonder.
At such times as this we realize how mortal and weak we are… Rev. Desmond McConnell.
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I tell this story from my own experience. However I have changed the names of most of the characters. Some of the events are fictional and some, especially the bump events, are factual. I hope that you have enjoyed this short story.
Please download a sample of Angel’s Blessing and Heart of Winter if you enjoy romance. A murder/mystery that you might enjoy is Who Wants to Murder a Millionaire? And for a family story with a happy ending Jewell might be to your liking. For suspense and romance Death and Deceit, will be coming soon.
I have been writing all my life starting with my first songs, poems and short stories at about the age of nine. I also love to paint and my favourite subject is animals. If you wish to see some of my paintings please go to my painting website below.
I have worked in radio writing commercials, and I have also been a freelance journalist. For five years I co-owned and operated a Bed and Breakfast. I live and work in Nova Scotia's beautiful Annapolis Valley.
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