Cleanup after shovelling coal into basement – Benmore Forester Training School
The photograph is courtesy of Jim Millar, Banbury, who attended Benmore from 1952 – 1954.
The students have been named from the left by Jim as:
Frank Cameron (with broom)
Jimmy Bain
Jim Fraser
Malcolm Miles
Peter Sloan
Kevin McDonald
Ernie Clark
The image in the PDF (Link below) shows them all lined up in grimy splendour.
Most students at Benmore over the years experienced the joys of collecting coal or coke for the large central heating boiler located down in the basement. The school student transport lorry was pressed into service having its canvass canopy and bench seats removed. The lorry was usually loaded by mechanical shovel, or in this case by a grab on the puffer that landed the coal at Strone. Once back at the school the coal or coke had to be shovelled off the lorry (no tipper) as close as possible to a small ground level wall hatch that led into the boiler fuel storage bunker below ground level. Coal shovelled in the access hatch then had to be shovelled into and piled up high in the storage bunker – the most dusty part of a very dusty activity!
The boiler was quite a structure, iron, about five feet high, five wide and probably six to seven long. The boiler fed large four inch diameter iron pipes that ran around the whole building leading to heavy cast iron radiators in the rooms. It was probably a gravity convection system. First year students on orderly duty for a week, along with a series of jobs, had to stoke the boiler regularly in the autumn, winter and spring. Latterly coke from the gas works was certainly used. If spare loaves and butter were located in the kitchen store, a ploy was to retire to the boiler room, open the fuel feed door and let the draft create a hot red bed of coal or coke and sit and have fresh made toast. It was warm there but certainly not clean!
Any more memories of the coal days would be very welcome.
Please see large image link and PDF below
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Groups: Forester Training Schools and Universities, Forestry in Action, Groups of people