Sunday, July 24, 2011

Jake Russell had requested a photograph from the colonnade on the waterfront. Rob took us there first thing Sunday morning, when it was easy to find a place to park. We stood in front of the columns while Rob took our picture. The columns hide the fictional entrance to an underground office and research facility for UFO hunters in the Torchwood television series, a spin-off of Doctor Who. We did not have time to visit the UFO hunters, so we climbed back into Rob’s bus for the trip to Caerphilly Castle.

Caerphilly is the largest castle in Wales, built by the marcher lord, Gilbert de Clare, in the 13th century. Several layers of fortifications protect the inner ward, many of them in ruins. The keep had been restored by the Marquess of Bute in the early 20th century. The Marquess had made a pile of money shipping coal out of the Cardiff docks, near the present-day inter-universe portal. After making his money, he spent quite a bit of time restoring old castles, including Cardiff Castle, Castel Coch, and Caerphilly, all in the Cardiff area. The castle was preparing to host a wedding – cars and vans were driving across the moat carrying flowers, white linens and cake. A group of singers and drummers had brought a 12-foot-tall witch puppet to parade around the castle. It seemed like an odd pre-Christian ritual. Outside the castle, the town of Caerphilly was decked out in flowers, which grow so well in this climate.

After lunch, we drove to the Big Pit, the largest and last of the nationalized coal mines to be closed by Margaret Thatcher in the mid-1980’s. Rhys Davies, the former miner who was our guide, referred to her only as “she who shall not be named.” Rhys had started working in the mine in 1968 at age 15. To get into the Pit, you are required to wear a hard hat, with a light and battery, and a rescue breathing device, which chemically removes CO2 from the air in the mine as you breathe. They also collect in a bag any smoking materials (cigarettes, tobacco, lighters, etc.) and anything containing a battery, such as cameras, watches or cell phones, that could create a spark which might ignite methane.

About 20 of us boarded the elevator to descend 300 feet into the Pit. At the bottom, we were confronted by, in addition to the elevator operator, two drams full of coal. Each dram was a small rail car that looked like it held about 5 tons of coal each. The drams were pulled back and forth on cables attached to a motor mounted next to the elevator. Each miner, assisted by a lad of 15 or so, filled five drams per day.

Rhys stopped periodically to ask if there were questions. I asked, how thick was the seam. He replied that it varied in thickness, between 10 and 16 feet. I then asked, how many Btu per pound in the coal. Rhys did not care for that question, saying, “I am just a poor miner – I do not know the answers to such questions. Those scientific boys are up on the hill. If you want to know, you’ll have to ask them.” He acted angry, so I offered to buy him a pint afterwards, which seemed to settle him down a bit. He then said that he was just having fun with me, but I was not convinced.

We walked down slope to the underground stables where horses were kept. Horses were used as late as 1999 to pull the drams of coal back and forth to where they could be attached to the motorized cables. (Some mines remained in private hands after 1985 and were not closed – until later.) The mine goes as deep as 500 feet, and was a bit damp and uneven under foot. We – even Abby – had to duck our heads in many places as we walked along the corridor. Teryn later reported that she was the only one who did not have to duck her head while in the mine. I’ve spent a lot of time ducking under pipes in power plants, yet I still banged my hard hat several times on low spots in the ceiling. I could see why my great-grandfather did not want his descendants to become miners.

After ascending the elevator and retrieving our battery-containing belongings, we walked up the hill to see the showers and museum. Rob took us back to the Big Sleep hotel, the Euro-techno youth hostel that he and Irene had booked for two nights in Cardiff. He recommended the Owain Glendwr pub, a short walk away in old downtown Cardiff. Abby and I went ahead to scout out the menu and determine whether it was truly walking distance for the rest of the group. It was. It’s in the same block as the Burger King across from Cardiff castle. Once the rest of the party was close to the pub, Susan and I used our cell phones to close the gap between us. We had a nice pub supper of fish and chips, steak pie and the like.