A. J. CRONIN STORY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24419, 3 October 1940, Page 3

A. J. CRONIN STORY

DRAMA OF THE COAL PITS They died in a coal pit slowly, hopelessly, one by one as their mates battled feverishly to break through to save them. Hour after hour, day after day, they tapped on the rock with a stone in the hope that they might be heard and an answering tap come back to them, but always silence of the tomb—their tomb. Three days before the flimsy walls of Scupper flats, a dangerous coal seam in the Sleesdale colliery had yielded to the terrific pressure of a million tons of flood water and a mighty deluge had been let loose upon miners working at the face. The telephone line—the last hope of communication, had carried a feeble message of hope. “ Carry on through the old workings and go straight ahead without turning 1500 yards, and then break through the wall where the mine has been Some time in the past the roof had caved in, and now a fall of a thousand tons of rock blocked their path. Without tools it was hopeless to try to break through. So for hours they sat. For days they had endured, until slowly the want of food had begun to tell upon their weakening bodies. Water trickled through the cracks in the rocks, but food —of this there was none—except a cough drop or two that had been forgotten in a pocket. At the end of the third day they died. This is one of the dramatic incidents in the film version of Dr A. J. Cronin’s “ The Stars Look Down,” which will be shown at the State Theatre to-morrow.