Windle Green Colliery Ventilation Officer, Jack Reid had disturbing news for his men when they arrived at the pit that Thursday morning: the Manager wanted airflow, methane and coal dust tests on nine's intake and return roadways.
     Ventilation assistant Jumbo Parks scowled. "Surely not - it's twenty years since nine's was open."
     Jack Reid shrugged. If his men wanted to face the pit manager in his office and tell him was wrong, then get over there right now, or - collect your gear and make for number nine.
     Dust Control Officer Billy Painter backed Jumbo's view. Why take readings on a coal seam that ran out in 1950?
     Jack Reid told them that he and other colliery officials had suffered a grilling from Manager Charles Bunker. The coal output for the past two months was down 40% and Area wanted to know why. It was explained to Area that the two current seams, 19 and 21 had hit coal seam fractures thus rendering the faces uneconomical, so Area gave Manager Bunker a direct order: reopen nine's face while two other seams are developed.
     Jumbo Parks remembered nine's seam. The coal production was high and of good quality. However, the seam closed when Owen Hopkins died when struck by a cave in on nine's return road.
     Production dipped and came to a halt a month later when three men insisted they had seen Owen patrolling nine's return, warning them to vacate the roadway.

The darkness of a mine can affect the strongest-minded of men. Sometimes you travel alone, walking an intake where the cold air keeps you alert as your cap lamp picks out the rock falls and your ears endure the screeching conveyor belt carrying coal to the next transfer point. Then you reach a crossroad where a shortcut through doors takes you to the return road.
     Here you notice a sudden rise in temperature, the air is foul, and you take off your coat and your shirt. Sweat courses down your body. You adjust your knee pads to stop them rubbing. Lights shine in the gloom. Shadows cast weird shapes. An alarm sounds, and an endless steel rope dragged by a distant engine moves a line of tubs carrying supplies.
     You step into a recess and allow the tubs to pass by. They are squealing, jolting on the uneven rail track accompanied by a tub man supervising the load. You say 'Hiya' and exchange a few words. His pal is twenty yards or so behind the tubs checking things are okay.

To Billy Painter, there was nothing darker than the blackness of number nine. For Billy did believe in ghosts. "I saw my grandma at home on the stairs five years after she'd died."
     "Rubbish!" scoffed Jumbo.
     "It's true."
     Jumbo scoffed again. "A bloody big lad like you and you're frightened of your grandma? Come off it."
     "It's not my grandma I'm scared of - it's her phantom."
     "What's a phantom?" asked trainee Reg Tocks.
     "It's somebody whose there when they're not," grinned Jumbo.
     Jack Reid had had enough. "That's like you lot, you're here - and you shouldn't be. Now get down to nine's - and bloody quick. Go down the intake road first and come back up the return. Don't forget to take air samples, and keep watch on young Reg, we don't want to lose a trainee. A deputy has walked nine's and we have permission to go there. He says there's plenty of stinking water and there's floor lift at about eight hundred yards on the intake, so watch what you're doing."

     The cage slowed as it reached the pit bottom, jolted, then locked into position. Nobody moved for some seconds. The news of number nine reopening had rocketed round the colliery and each man had his own beliefs - especially in the darkness of a pit, with machinery rumbling, the detonation of explosives and the dust and stench of a shift.

     Jack Reid came down the mine an hour after his men.

     Jumbo Parks explained to trainee Reg how the ventilation department operated. Sufficient air must flow down the intake road so that miners could breath, foul toxins were removed and fire-fighting equipment was sited in relevant positions. The air then travelled along the coal face, usually for two hundred yards, and moved along the return road, taking with it methane gas and dust. This journey picked up heat. An intake road might have a temperature of forty-five degrees Fahrenheit, yet the return road might be over eighty degrees Fahrenheit.
     "That's a big difference," said Reg.
     Jumbo nodded as they reached nine's intake. "It is a big difference, young Reg and you'll notice that if you wind up with a job that has you using both roadways." Jumbo looked back to Billy. "What's up with you, Bill? Are you ill?"
     Billy, unhappy at being on this seam, said so.
     Jumbo rigged up his anemometer to take an airflow reading. "Billy, there are no ghosts down here - or anywhere else. They don't exist. This is the real world, not a world of make-believe. Anyway, why should you worry? You're built like a bleedin' tank and that's enough to frighten off any apparition."
     "What's an apparition?" asked Reg.
     Billy had the answer. "It's a big, hairy ghost that scares the crap out of you!"

They reached the face air intake and measured the air velocity. There was just enough movement to clear the area of methane. Billy took dust samples at regular intervals and placed them into small packets for sending to the Area lab.
     Reg wanted to travel through the face.
     "Too dangerous," said Jumbo. "We take our readings and Area makes the decisions. There's a slit road a couple of hundred yards back. "We'll go through there and into the return."
     Billy was unhappy. "That's Owen Hopkins' place."
     "Stop talking about ghosts, Billy! You'll frighten young Reg."
     The trainee grinned "They don't bother me - I'm impregnable."
     Billy frowned. "What's impregnable?"
     "Your head," said Jumbo. "Now come on, let's get to the return."

     The crossroad had two gateways to regulate airflow but after twenty years of disuse the heat on the return road was above ninety degrees Fahrenheit. An old newspaper lay partly covered by dust and a discarded jacket hung on a peg with a plastic bottle containing water hanging from a pocket.

      They took more readings and were half a mile from the return road exit when something moved ahead of them.
     "Did you see that?" whispered Billy, sweat dribbling from his chin.
     Jumbo cursed and told Billy to get on with the job. Trainee Reg agreed with Billy.
     "I saw something move - I'm sure I did."
     Billy was adamant. "I'll bet it's Owen."
     Jumbo shone his cap lamp into the mass of roof falls and floor lifts. There was nothing but stench and dust. "There's nothing."
     "There is," said a voice ahead of them.
     "Who is it?" yelled Billy. "What do you want?"

     Jack Reid turned his cap lamp from dim to bright. "It's me - you berk. Have you finished with those readings?"
     Discussing the opening of nine's, they took final readings at the return junction and wrote the results into little books.

     Nine's is due to open in three months. I dispute that. Nine's will never open again.

     I should know - because I am Owen Hopkins.