Memory of the month the way things were (Part Fifteen)

Continuing our series featuring the memoirs of retired plant man William Peters, told in his own words with period photos from Bill and the Digger Man Blog Archives.

Kingsteignton bypass A380

In 1973 Whites got the contract to do the earthmoving for the Kingsteignton bypass, not long after we started it became obvious that the nature of the ground was not what had been contracted for. 

We had been told that it was a sandy type of rock which I would have been able to dig out with the Hough H400 and in some areas that was the case but in other areas we came upon large outcrops of honeycombed limestone with the holes full of clay and too hard even for the D9’s to rip out. In other places were large limestone rocks which I was able to handle. A drilling company was brought in to blast the rock  and although it was a nightmare for the chaps to drill because of the holes they were managing quite well and had been working for a few weeks without incident even though there were houses fairly close to the roadworks, one day we all pulled our machines back to what we thought was a safe distance, they fired the holes and we went back to work. But a couple of hours later we heard some very bad news that a stone had flown out about a quarter of a mile from the blast and hit a small boy playing in a garden killing him instantly, none of us had seen a flier so we could hardly believe it could have carried so far, very sad.

About this time Whites decided they could do with another shovel and as Caterpillar had recently brought out the 992 loader we got the local dealer to bring one for a demonstration.  It arrived on site about 9 o’clock again being driven to site minus the cab, all shiny with fifty more horsepower making my old machine look a bit sad, but to be fair it had worked for five years and shifted millions of tons. The operator dressed in collar & tie started picking up buckets of dirt and dropping them, nothing useful and then an oil pipe burst covering him in oil so that was it for day one.  

The next day he was back wearing overalls and the cab was on, again he started picking up bucket fulls and dropping them and then after about twenty minutes another pipe burst, end of day two. The following day they realised that the hydraulic pressure had been set too high, so with adjustments made he was once again picking up dirt and dropping it, by now it was 10 o’clock time for our 10 minute break, there were lots of people around, Horace and Les White the management team from the site, the Caterpillar sales team and several dump truck drivers all chatting away, so I went to have a look at this machine.

The driver was standing at the bottom of the ladder so I said can I have a go expecting him to say of course I’ll show you the controls, what he actually said  in a very loud voice was “keep away this is a man’s tool” everything went quiet you could have heard the proverbial pin drop, I hadn’t been expecting that and for a few seconds didn’t know what to say. Just prior to this I had been preparing to load away some big rocks and had put some fines in the dumper so as not to dent the floor, so I said “if it’s such a man’s tool let me see you pick up that rock and put in that dumper” “no problem he said” I knew it weighed about 22 tons so I expected him to manage it ok, no one, least of all me expexpected what happened next.

Period Photo:Courtesy of the Keith Haddock Collection. 

He roared up to the rock which I’d placed against a bank facing uphill and it went into the bucket easily rolling it back he pulled the lift leaver back at full throttle, the bucket didn’t move but the back end shot up in the air, he bashed his nose on the steering wheel making it bleed. I’m well over 6 feet and I could have walked under the back wheels, now most of us would have eased the lever forward to lower the back wheels but he just pushed it right forward, they hit the ground with a hell of a bang bouncing in a cloud of dust, he tried twice more but couldn’t budge it at all, rolling it out he came back and said “can’t be done you’ll have to blast it” I replied “is that so, well let me show you how it should be done”

Picking it up I went to the dumper and tipping and supporting the side at the same time it went in text book style no banging  or rocking it landed on the fines dead centre of the butt, I put on another two rocks then looked back to see the drivers cheering and clapping and Horace just pointed at the gate, end of demo. I did think of saying to the Cat people next time you want a loader demonstrated ring Whites and ask for me but I didn’t bother, that was a good day. The Co-operator