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62 ROAMIN' IN THE GLOAMIN'
with little room to swing your pick, I have reckoned a ton and a half an excellent day's work.
While still in my teens I became a contractor. You have to be a responsible and experienced miner before you are allowed to take on a job by contract. It was at Barncleuth and Silverton Collieries that I got my first contract to drive a level from Will Frew, the underground manager. The system adopted in fixing a contract is simplicity itself. The manager takes you along to a certain working in the mine and says, "Gie me an offer?" You examine the coal-face, the quality of the coal, the depth of the seam, the arrangements for haulage and wooding, etc., and on these facts you make a quick mental calculation. On this occasion I offered Frew to take on the job at six-and-sixpence a fathom. "Done !" said he, and we shook hands — as binding an agreement as if the deed had been drawn up by a dozen lawyers and witnessed before the Court of Session. "A spittle in the loof an' a shak' o' the hand," as the old Scottish phrase has it, has sealed more honourably kept bargains in Scotland than were ever attested on parchment in any other country in the world.
In my day a miner's word was his bond. It may still be. I hope so, anyhow. I suppose there are still "contractors" in the Scottish mines, but, as I have said, the machines have altered everything and coal-cutting is not now the real man's work that it used to be. Incidentally, I learned long after leaving the pits for the stage that in several of the Lanarkshire collieries there were "still places" below known as "Lauder headings" and "Lauder levels," a tribute to my reputation and industry as a miner which I value very much indeed.