Birthdays, anniversaries and other landmark events provide an opportunity to reflect on events that have shaped and influenced us. It is in this spirit that The British Tunnelling Society (BTS) will celebrate next year the 50 years that have passed since its founding in 1971.
To mark the occasion, the BTS will publish a seminal book – under the working title ‘BTS at 50’. It is the brainchild of Ken Spiby, originally a contractor with Nuttall and then Taylor Woodrow, now a director of London Bridge Associates. He has 35 years of tunnelling experience in Copenhagen, CERN, South Africa and Brighton, but mostly in London. He has served on the BTS committee for 10 years with responsibilities which include the BTS website. In 2019, Spiby received the New Civil Engineer Tunnelling Award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Industry’.
Bibliogenesis
The book has had a long gestation. “A few years ago, I was at a James Clark Medal lunch at the ICE at which one of the recipients stood up and spoke of an incident from his many years of service to the industry. He was followed by another, then another, and for the next hour I listened spellbound,” Spiby told T&T. “The tales were varied: some were funny, some sad and some just plain interesting. But it was clear, these stories had to be recorded.
“The 50th Anniversary seemed to offer an ideal opportunity, and so in May 2017 I pushed a proposal to BTS Chair Mark Leggett and Vice Chair Ivor Thomas. The response was enthusiastic and committed: ‘great idea – get on with it’”
So Spiby gathered a small band of volunteers, and slowly, a possible structure for the book emerged. The team tried a few video interviews, but it became clear this and the subsequent transcribing could not be scaled up sufficiently, and so they changed to requesting written contributions. In Dec 2019, they went into overdrive to gather stories.
Progress
In the space of a few months the team has sourced and edited a total of 379 stories from almost 200 contributors. For this, up to a dozen volunteers must be thanked, all working predominantly in their own time (evenings and weekends).
The team first sourced stories from their extensive contacts, attempting to include as broad a cross-section of contributors as possible. There are contractors, designers, clients, suppliers, pit bosses, inspectors, miners, fitters, electricians and surveyors. The team has not yet been able to trace everyone on the target list. So, Spiby asks that those not yet contacted and who have a story to tell should visit www.britishtunnelling.org.uk/book for more details. It is an opportunity not to be missed.
The team is aiming for a rich, well-illustrated book and would greatly appreciate it if potential contributors can select the best images they have (ideally with people in) and send in scanned versions, hopefully with captions and names included.
Stories submitted are first edited and then sent to a professional editorial and layout team. They will then be skilfully melded into a lavish (by industry standards) A4 landscape-format book expected to have around 500-600 pages. That the BTS is able to employ such professionals is testament to the generosity of corporate and individual sponsors.
Currently, it is envisaged that around 2,000 copies will be published, with sales at a price which Spiby expects will be “very competitive for a quality book of this nature”. However, publication before summer 2021 is unlikely. Even so, Spiby hopes to be ready for printing and therefore able to start taking preorder sales in March 2021.
The BTS intends to gift copies to decision makers, academic institutions, schools, universities and others as part of an expanded outreach programme by the BTSYM (Covid-19 permitting). Spiby says: “What better way to inspire the next generation into careers in engineering and tunnelling, than to flick through a book with quality illustrations of large ‘toys’, reading of challenges overcome and how much we all enjoy this wonderful industry”.
What is inside?
‘BTS at 50’ will include a lively mix of individual tunnelling tales and anecdotes. The instructions to authors are very loose: “Write about anything you like but make it relevant, informative and / or interesting”. Submissions so far have varied from a fascinating set of 4 x 4,000-word essays to a 120-word tale of crossing a road. These recollections will be interspersed with articles on ‘people’ and ‘BTS activities’, and there will also be extracts and photos from past issues of T&T.
A selection of extracts from BTS at 50 is printed below.
A Tunneller’s Tale
John Nally started tunnelling in 1983 and was one of 23 young men of his generation to join the UK tunnelling industry from the small town of Irishtown in County Mayo, Ireland. He has worked on a string of major projects including the Channel Tunnel, Jubilee Line Extension, DLR, Crossrail and the Northern Line Extension and he is currently employed at Hinkley Point. As might be expected, it has not all been easy going.
“The first 18 years of my tunnelling career involved brutal, hard work, filling skips or ‘jiggering’ for 12 hours a day,” said Nally.
“There was no hiding place in a hand-tunnelling gang: if you didn’t produce in that backbreaking environment, you were simply told to go. There was always another miner ready to fill your boots. But I wouldn’t change any of it for the world. I met some great characters and friends along the way.”
In the early 1990s, the increased use of SCL and closed-face TBMs began to eradicate much of the heavy labour and hugely improved the working lives of tunnellers generally. Said Nally: “The industry is a far healthier place to work in now, with constant atmospheric testing, better ventilation, better welfare facilities and the correct PPE for the task in hand. The work nowadays is fitted around the individual, rather than him/her being an afterthought. Tunnelling is a fantastic industry to work in and I would recommend it to anyone”.
New to Tunnels
Christina Trigle is a more recent recruit into the industry, and arrived by a very different route (with a university degree in civil engineering), She is now a TBM shift engineer on the main tunnel drive on Tideway (West), and previously worked on the SCL ‘shunts’ to launch the TBM from the drive shaft at Carnwath Road. Her contribution to the book is an intriguing and lighthearted series of diary excerpts, illustrating the realities of her subterranean existence.
“11 September 2018: My suspicions are confirmed: the weeklong surveying course I did in my first year at university (and remember nothing about) is much more relevant to this job than the rest of my four years of study. The previous engineer is leaving shift work because of frustration over a much depleted social life. Two other engineers were of a similar opinion and left before the shaft was finished. This is probably not a glowing recommendation”.
“18 November 2018: The stress of the malfunctioning total station while spraying must be getting to me. I keep waking up from SCL dreams trying desperately to find the little red laser dot on my bedroom wall.”
Yet despite the unsociable hours and occasional discomforts, she still feels very lucky to be able to do her job and thoroughly enjoys it. “There is no feeling like the elation within the manrider as you come out for the weekend on time after a productive shift. In my short time working so far, I’ve met some wonderful people, both above and below ground, and I’ve been very lucky to be learning from people so knowledgeable, and who are also willing to take the time to pass on some of that knowledge to me. I hope to continue in the industry, and maybe provide some better stories for a 100th anniversary book (if I’m still around).”
Sally Cox is another new recruit to tunnelling: “Having spent the major part of my career building railways and bridges, now I find myself project director on a large tunnelling project”.
Although tunnelling has presented Cox with a steep learning curve, the positives far outweigh the negatives. “Like most of our industry, it’s all about the people you meet, the traditions they embrace and the stories they tell. That’s what makes it unique and an environment I have loved for 28 years.”
Cox is looking forward to the ‘BTS at 50’ book to which she has contributed, but what does she feel its value will be? “There is no better way to celebrate the history of British tunnelling than through the eyes of the people that have lived and breathed it for the last 50 years,” she says. “This book is an important historical record. Without it, those memories would be lost forever.”
‘BTS at 50’ will be published in summer 2021. Further details are available from the British Tunnelling Society: (www.britishtunnelling.org.uk/book).
