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| Training book "Wat de houwer moet weten", published by Gezamenlijke Steenkolenmijnen in Limburg. 9th edition, 1960 - Page 155/56 |
In the lamp room the manager was called ‘chief’, ‘boss’ or ‘light master’. The ‘ordinary’ workers in the lamp room were called lamp men, lamp assistants- or lamp repair men. The managing, preserving and repairing of the mine lamps were part of their tasks.
The day shifts were the busiest. From 06:00 to 14:00 hours and 14:00 to 22:00 hours. These two shifts were the so called production shifts. It was during these two shifts that the largest number of miners were working underground at the same time. Before the start of the shifts all miners had to collect their lamps. Depending on the size of the mining company this could range from hundreds to thousands of miners in one hour. In that peak hour the same number of mine lamps were issued while at the same time lamps from the last shift were returned.
The responsibility for checking lamps lay with the lamp men in the lamp room, but also lay strongly with the miners themselves. Immediately after being given their lamps, the miners had to check that their lamps were complete, functioning properly and were free of defects. This procedure was also covered in the training books.
(Publication company magazine of the private mine Willem-Sophia, Anthracite 1957 - No. 2 – pp. 32/33)