South Yorkshire Times December 6, 1947

Pithead “Flash’ Burn
Wath Main Mishap
Power House Workers Detained in Hospital

Silver and copper coins which were in the pockets of a man who, with two other men, was severely burned in an accident at Wath Main Colliery in the early hours on Wednesday were blackened and disfigured almost beyond recognition.

The man’s mother happened by chance to be sitting up late and the noise caused by the accident was so loud that she heard it in Brampton – unaware that her son was a victim.

Detained in Hospital

The three men, who were removed almost immediately to Montagu Hospital. Mexborough’ where they are now detained. were:—

Frank Whorton (36), powerhouse attendant, 9, Winterwell Road, West Melton.

Ernest Turnbull (32), fitter, 20 The Croft, Elsecar; and

Eric Poole (21), fitter, 9, Coronation Road, Wath.

All were engaged on maintenance work on an engine driven by waste gas from the coke-oven plant, when there was a sudden “flash.” The engine, which drives a dynamo, is , situated in a small annexe to the main power-house of the colliery. There were no other men in the building at the time.

Poole ran outside for help and Whorton was found outside the building on the adjoining railway lines.

The colliery ambulance was summoned at once and the driver had a nightmare journey in endeavouring to get the men to hospital as quickly as possible through thick fog which enveloped the district.

The cause of the ” flash ” has not been disclosed.

Interviewed by a ” South Yorkshire Times ” reporter a few hours after the accident. Turnbull’s mother said she was sitting downstairs at her home in Wentworth Road. Brampton, when she heard a “bank.” She did not connect the occurrence with the colliery but heard in the morning that her son had been hurt.

Clothes ” Like Paper “

His clothes.” she said, ” have been so burned that they could be torn like paper.” She produced his penknife and various coins which he had had in his pockets when the ” flash” occurred. The coins had not been bent. but were so completely discoloured that it was not possible to distinguish between copper and silver by the colour. The blades of the penknife, though closed at the time, were also blackened.

Mrs Turnbull said her son’s wife was roused at tier home at Elsecar early on Wednesday morning by a man whom she at first took to be a tramp, but who was actually a collier in his pit dirt, who had come to inform her of the accident. Accompanied by her mother-in-law, she went to see her husband in hospital later in the morning.

“My son had grown a moustache,” Mrs. Turnbull, senior, said, ” and we had been telling him to shave it off.  When we visited him in hospital, he remarked jokingly  ‘I’ll have no need to shave now: ” His face was swathed in bandages.

In Father’s Footsteps

Turnbull, who has one small child, has worked at the colliery 14 years, and his father and Whorton father, Mr M Whorton, retired power-house attendant, had both worked for many years in the building in which their sons were Injured.