11 Welsh miners have been rescued after 47 years underground. It is thought that the miners became trapped after hiding in the colliery they worked in after becoming spooked from seeing the first episode of Dr Who on a black-and-white 405 line television set in their local pub – The Chip on the Shoulder.
It would appear that they took flight after seeing the first episode of the BBC’s television Sci-Fi drama at 17:15 GMT on 23 November 1963.
In the first episode, “An Unearthly Child”, the Doctor and his ‘Granddaughter use the TARDIS to travel back to the Stone Age. Thinking that it was real, the miners rushed down to the Ystrad-Pandy Pit in the Rhondda-Tup, and in their haste they managed to dislodge a corrugated asbestos roofing sheet at the shaft entrance trapping themselves inside.
In those days, all jobs were heavily unionised and as there were no registered ‘corrugated asbestos roofing sheet’ removal operatives in that particular valley, no one else was allowed to try and rescue them.
Fortunately, enterprising local baker Dai Greggs secretly managed to drill a 3 inch shaft under the roofing sheet and spent the last 47 years feeding them Corned Beef Slices in return for them keeping quiet about an incident some of them had witnessed involving himself, some local sheep and a rubber macintosh a few years earlier.
Attempts were made to rescue then in the 1970s, but in 1979 after Margaret Thatcher came to power they decided to stay where there were and it was only in 1993 that further attempts were made to rescue them.
The most promising of these failed in 1996 when young Rhodri Tupwitt’s attempt to pull the roofing sheet away by tying it to his Raleigh Grifter was deemed too dangerous by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) because of the possibility that he may fall off and graze his knee and fears of mass asbestos poisoning.
Finally, this morning (October 13th 2010) they were freed after a Jack Russell dug a 12″ diameter hole while trying to bury a bone.
Amazingly all the men are said to be in good condition and are looking forward to going back to work. No one has had the heart to tell them that we do not have mines any more.
First Minister Carwyn Jones was unavailable to comment.
