"As we sit down at the bench now at Tibshelf, we are overlooking the one pond, the other pond is over to our left. These ponds were originally here for the pit, and probably used for water storage, so they could use them for such things like dust suppression and things like that. But just behind us in the plantation, just over your left shoulder, is where the bottom pit shaft was.
"A few years ago it actually collapsed and caused a mighty scare for people. The collapse itself went about 30/40 feet down, but was soon repaired. When the shaft did collapse, I was actually on duty at the time and it was over the Christmas period. The first on the scene was the police, they actually left a lady police constable there, to make sure no one went near it and as we were getting the emergency services up to where the shaft was and stuff, I happened to go up being an ex-miner myself and just had to say to the police officers, (laughs) I see the police are looking into it then, aren't they, which didn't go down very well (more laughter)."