Yeah I hear you, some good memories, some not so good, and some that I try not to remember.
When I was young going underground was all part of the great adventure.
It is a different world down there.
Ah well. I am brassed out for good now.

The two jobs I hated the most were mucking out the sumps and slushing a drift, but I loved taking a round and cycling. So long as our cross did the same we were in the top bonus.
I really hated seeing a bootlegged face or a frozen face with burned ground.

The word "loose" still has a different meaning for me too.
I have seen pieces of loose the size of railway cars. Kind of hard to scale with a bar when it is that bad.
The 8 foot rockbolts just helped hold it together after it fell out of the back.

I love it when I see a mine shown in a movie and they are always so nice and and there is no water flowing down to the sumps or spraying from the face.

You were at a mining school so it was different for you guys to be in the old drifts, and manways, but I still shudder when I think of people entering old workings.
It is so easy for them to fall down a winze or a raise, get trapped by loose or run into a bit of bad air.

Now I will stop and quit hijacking the thread again.

I find it interesting you were using the Chemlights for marking gear.