Paul has packed plenty of suitcases in his time, having spent years away from his UK homeland in as diverse places as South Africa, Poland and China. He started his career in 1974 at various British coal mines before being made shift boss and then mine captain for Anglo American in South Africa. Paul then decided it was time to put work on hold, and spent four years completing a MSc and PhD in rock mechanics at Cardiff University. This set him up for an export sales manager position with Dowty Mining and later Meco International for Australia, Canada and South Africa. He then made the move to Poland where he set up Meco Polska as manager of central Europe for Longwall International.

Paul was them homeland bound as group mining engineer for Joy Mining Machinery before a change to China, where he was project manager for three Joy longwalls installed at Shenhua. In 2000 he was promoted to general manager of Joy Mining Machinery, China, before taking up his present position of international sales manager for Joy UK in 2003.

ILN:What is your earliest mining memory?

PF: Going underground at Birch Coppice Colliery on my first day down the pit on 13th January 1975 and seeing all this white powder all over the roof, floor and sides. It caused some amusement when I asked what it was for and after a shift stonedusting by hand, I learned to keep my eyes open and my mouth shut in the future.

ILN: What made you choose mining as a career?

PF: I enjoyed potholing and geology at school and the money helped too…

ILN: What was your favourite job in a coal mine?

PF: Pit bottom deputy, supervising the queue for the cage at the end of the shift. I always enjoyed the camaraderie of the men as they shook me warmly by the throat in the dash to get up the pit.

ILN: What was your least favourite job?

PF: Struggling here – I’ve enjoyed every job but one that possibly springs to mind is cleaning out the rear leg pockets of a set of 4 leg shields underground in Cynheidre Colliery in South Wales when I first started with Dowty in the late 1980s. It was about a four foot seam with a foot of water. The fines had set like concrete in the leg pockets and we were working under water in a very confined area.

ILN: Who, or what, has most influenced your mining career?

PF: Tom Fleming, manager of Newdigate Colliery in Warwickshire in the 1970s. He called me into his office one day and said that as part of my face training I was going to spend three months in a hand got heading, blasting off the solid and hand loading onto a miniveyor. He said that I wouldn’t thank him then but I would appreciate it in the future. He was correct on both counts.

ILN: What do you consider your best mining achievement?

PF: One of the most exiting tasks I had was as project manager for the installation of three longwalls in Shaanxi Province and Inner Mongolia in China in 1999-2000. These were the first modern western longwalls into China and we were working in a remote area of the Gobi Desert with limited resources and communications. I can remember walking round the surface compatibility site with the mine manager, Mr Ko Ping and asking him what production he expected from the longwall in its first year. To my amazement and horror he said 8 million tonnes and obviously meant it. After a very difficult 12 months we finished in December 2000 with 8.03 million tonnes. It left me with enormous respect for the local Chinese mine managers, engineers and workers.

ILN: What do you see as being the greatest mining development during your career?

PF: The introduction of continuous miners and roof bolting in European coal mines.

ILN: Tell me about your overseas experience in South Africa and China. What were the main challenges you faced in these countries?

PF: I worked for Anglo American in the early 1980s as a Shift Boss and Mine Captain at a number of surface and underground mines in the Transvaal. As a single man at the time, the beer and rugby culture there suited me well.

I spent a lot of time in Poland in the early 1990s for Meco International as the country was opening up after the fall of communism. The mines were working with outdated equipment and there was huge interest in Western AFCs and shearers. I was closely involved in the establishment of a local company, Meco Polska, in Katowice. I travelled a lot through the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Bosnia and Serbia at a very interesting time.

I have just come back from a three year period in China as General Manager for Joy. China is one of the few world mining industries undergoing rapid expansion. Production figures and standards in the best longwall operations compare favourably with the best in Australia and the US.

ILN: Do you have any unfulfilled ambitions?

PF: To see Nick Wills break out into a sweat.

ILN: What was your most embarrassing moment in a coal mine?

PF: We were driving a short cross cut between a trunk road and the longwall delivery gate to bypass a collapsing junction. I was shotfirer for the drivage and one Monday dayshift after a particularly long weekend (a rugby international in Dublin) we were about to break through. Despite having a thick head I thought to run out some extra cable due to the thirl. As I pressed the exploder button I realised that I had run out the extra cable right round to where we were going to join the delivery gate. I was completely buried in fine coal and emerged from the smoke to the echoes of a few choice comments.

ILN: What was your scariest time in a coal mine?

PF: I was inspecting some old workings and when I raised my lamp to test for methane I saw (and heard) an explosion in my lamp as I lifted it past my face.

ILN: Do you think that the day of the fully automated remotely operated face is near?

PF: This is something that has been talked about for decades. We get closer and closer but it is difficult to imagine a longwall without human supervision.

ILN: What major improvements would you like to see on longwall operations?

PF: Bigger machines and more horsepower is certainly the order of the day. In China we are working with shearers with 750kW ranging arms and 48mm AFCs. This not only improves production rates but also increases availability and the time between rebuilds.

The quality of information flow of machine status and health to the mine surface is an area of significant attention.