Going down into the mine, a man with a very bright light sat at the front of the train. He was the "trammer" or signalman. He looked out for obstructions such as fallen timber or rock on the tracks ahead.

At the bottom of the mine, long tunnels extended east and west. At the entrance of each tunnel there was a row of ore cars pulled by an electric locomotive. The men got off the tram and got aboard the ore cars to be taken to their place of work.

The mining process in No. 6 Mine was the "pillar and room" method. This meant a square opening was drilled into the solid ore and then proceeded inward. This left pillars on both sides for support. The wall of ore towards which you looked was known as the "face." The sides of the room were known as "ribs." The roof was called the "back" and the floor was called the "footwall."

Two men using an air drill bored twelve holes to a depth of ten feet. The centre of the room, about ten feet across, was drilled in a wedge affair. This pattern would have been planned and drawn out by the foreman earlier that morning. The wedge piece detonated first, leaving the straight holes to be blown out more easily only seconds later.

The blasted ore was loaded aboard 4-ton cars. A machine called a "drag" hauled the ore from the face to the opening of the room. The other method was to load the ore by hand. Horses hauled these cars to the face or the room. Two men, one on each side of the ore car, would load their complement of eight cars a day, or 32 tons.

Locomotives pulled the ore cars to the main dumping area, known as the pocket. Another series of cars, six in number, would haul the ore to the surface.

Around 10 a.m. it was mug-up time. This was done in shifts as the work had to continue. Lunch at 12 noon was done in the same way, with no stoppage in work. At 5 p.m. all work ceased and each man made his way to the main slope to board the train for the 20-minute journey to the surface.

I washed and changed my clothes and headed for home. My first day ... I had become a Bell Island miner.