The Miners’ Welfare Commission. 2.
(Extracts from a 1945 booklet).
"To Provide Facilities for Taking Baths and Drying Clothes."
(Mining Industry Act, 1926).
Here was the beginning of welfare problems. How could the miners enjoy to the full all the other things which it is the purpose of welfare to provide until he was rid of the eternal bogy of pit-dirt and sweaty clothes?
The answer was simple: there was no magic in it -- it was the pithead bath. Those who have visions of tubs or slipper baths, plunges and swimming pools must think again. There is only one way to wash a miner --- his wife now readily agrees --- and that is under a shower.
"Leave your dirt where you get it --- at the pit!" was for a long time the repeated exhortation. It may sound odd that such an exhortation was ever necessary, but tradition and custom are hard to break. Exhortation both to provide and use pithead baths is no longer necessary. Miners now take to them like ducks to water. Accommodation for 442,000 miners has been provided, and practically all the men employed at the 362 collieries equipped with pithead baths bathe daily. These baths may accommodate as few as 50 or as many as 4,000 miners.
In terms of the number of men accommodated more than one half of this form of welfare work is done, about 640 more collieries employing about 300,000 remains to be equipped with baths.
Within the pithead bath the miner finds a room in which to strip off his clothes and to leave them to dry during the time he is at home, and another in which to put on his home-going clothes. After much experiment, it has been found that stacks of sheet-metal lockers, through which warm dry air is forced, are the most satisfactory method of drying these clothes. In the pit-locker room each miner has his own locker for his pit clothes and another one in the clean locker room for his home clothes. In them he finds, in much better conditions of convenience and speed, all those facilities which he hitherto found on the hearth and fireguard. And most important of all, his pit clothes never come into contact with his home clothes.
Whilst he is at home the drying plant will do its job; when he returns to work, a warm and dry suit of pit clothes will await him.
Having stripped off his pit clothes, he now needs to remove the dirt on his body. So, armed with his soap-tray and towel, which he keeps in his pit locker, he passes on to the bath-house. He is anxious to get this business of bathing over as soon as possible and finds that the shower in the pithead bath fills the bill admirably. Six minutes; a helping hand with his back; about four gallons of hot water and two for a cold douche is all that is needed for a thorough wash-down.
The storage of four gallons of hot water for each miner in a pithead bath which accommodates a total of, say, 2,000, presents a a fairly formidable engineering problem. Of this total number, the big shift of some 1,000 bustling miners will be clamouring for their baths in the space of 30 minutes or so. They bustle, not because they fear the hot water might all be used, but because buses and trains are waiting and they are anxious to get home. The water will certainly be there when the big shift arrives; all piping hot and with ample reserves.
After bathing, the miner, taking with him his towel and soap-tray, passes along to the clean locker room. Here is his other locker containing his home clothes. A few minutes to dress; a convenient mirror on the locker by which to adjust his cap at a jaunty angle, and he is ready for the journey home. Ready, that is, so far as the outer man is concerned. But, perhaps, the inner man, after a hard shift, is tired and complaining and the journey home may be a long one.
Even before the war, the majority of pithead baths had a busy canteen, rather of the snack-bar type, where the miner could get some light refreshment. In times when milk was plentiful, he was a great milk drinker and evinced a great liking for sweet things --- cakes, buns, and even "pop"! The explanation is simple. Milk is the best assuager of a dusty thirst, and sugar is known to be a speedy restorative of energy. The miner needs enough energy to take a weary body home to his real meal --- the first since he left home --- and something to salve a dust-dry tongue and throat.
When he returns to work the next day he goes through the same pithead bath routine but this time in reverse. He changes into his pit garb and goes to the pit direct from the baths; in some case, entirely under cover, by means of a covered way or gantry over the pit yard.
These are the main functions of the pithead baths. Power driven boot brushes, boot-greasing apparatus, taps for drinking water, a convenient hook to hold his shirt and towel while the miner bathes; cunningly fashioned storage devices in the lockers. All these and other small things contribute to the well-being of miners by making changing and bathing at the pit a simple and quick routine.
In the baths problems of steam, water, electric power, supply and waste water disposal are sometimes quite formidable. Although, normally, many of these services are derived from the colliery plant, it is not uncommon for a pithead bath to be an entirely self contained unit, having its own plant for steam raising, water softening, electric power and waste water disposal.
The capital cost of pithead baths is met from the Miners' Welfare Fund but no grants are made for upkeep costs. They must be self-supporting. Each bath is administered by Trustees and a Management Committee, and on these governing bodies employers and employees have equal representation. Contributions towards the running costs are made in varying degrees and ways by colliery companies, sometimes by cash or through the provision of services, free, or at special rates. In nearly all baths, however, the miners pay the larger part of upkeep costs through contributions made by agreed deductions from their wage packets. These weekly contributions vary a good deal in amount from district to district and also in proportion to the size of the pithead bath. They are, as a general rule, less for a bath for 2,000 than one for 200, but throughout the country they average 6d. per man per week.
Pithead baths have a lore and legends of their own, and the miner is prone to make his pithiest comments in an apposite way. Perhaps the greatest tribute, and the aptest comments, lies in a story told by one of the Commission's staff of architects who was inspecting an installation a month or so after it had been put into operation. He was approached by an elderly collier, who, fully attired, was leaving the baths on his way to the pit. "Art owt to do with baths, lad?" was the somewhat abrupt question. The architect explained that he had more than a bit to do with them. "Well," said the old fellow, "I'd like to tell you I'm a fool. When they talked about baths I thought nowt of 'em; when they were building 'em I thought nowt of 'em; when they were opened I still thought nowt of 'em, but I were a fool!"
The story, which is better when garnished with its original adjectives, reflects the curious fact that it was not, at one time, an easy job to popularize pithead baths. Even though the hoary superstition that to wash the back was weakening was long since dead, older men often felt that a break with the fixed habits of a lifetime was a big thing to undertake at their age. It is that much more to their credit that they have made the break. Even some of the younger men were sceptical at first, but where fair words were unconvincing, the pithead baths in being won them instantly. The word "champion" is basic English for a wealth of praise in the miner's vocabulary, and when used, as it often is, to epitomize his appreciation of the baths, it is reward enough for many who have advocated the tradition of bathing at the colliery.
"Nowt but forty years too late" is often the sole criticism of the older miner.
Where a pithead bath has recently been put into operation, the physical benefits to its users are quickly noticeable. A new sense of self-respect made manifest in mien and bearing can also be discerned. The miner returns home. not in his working clothes but better dressed than most other artisans.
The effects on his home are no less noticeable. The domestic virtues of the pitman's wife are well known. Traditionally, her daily round of toil has had no beginning and no end; and no time, certainly, to forget that her menfolk are miners. Yet, in spite of this extra work, the miner's home was always, spotless. What it has meant to keep it so, in terms of domestic drudgery, is incalcuable. But the advent of the pithead baths lightens these heavy burdens, and no one realizes this more quickly than the miner's wife. Indeed, to hazard a guess, many a miner, apathitic or obstinate in his attitude to the pithead baths, has been won over to the virtues of leaving dirt at the pit by peaceful persuasion at home. This passive, but critical, part played by miner's wives has been well rewarded. The many baths up and down the country, and the many more to come, are intended to be two-fold in their beneit; a great convenience to the miner, and an inestimatable boon to his family.
As a conclusion to this brief account of pithead baths, it is pleasing to record that use has been made of them during the war in other ways than by providing for miners. Because of its adaptability, the pithead bath was often earmarked by the local authorities at the urgent call for gas decontamination centres, and pithead baths can also claim to have bathed a considerable part of the British and American armies, in various districts from time to time. Many soldiers, who have been stationed in mining areas, have warm tributes to pay to the pithead baths and other miners' welfare provisions, and many a unit commander has been grateful for such contributions to the welfare of his men. The scale on which the large pithead bath does its work is not always realised; and therein lies a neat story. An officer marched a company of his men up to the pithead bath and enquired from the Superintendent, somewhat diffidently, whether they should be addmitted in tens or twenties; the "Super" cast his eyes over the the job to be done and replied, "I'll take 'em all at once," and being something of a military martinet himself, promptly took command and put the whole company through an unfamiliar drill!
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