“Jones the Shark”, known to most as Gareth Jones, German Creek Southern and Central underground operations manager, has had an interesting career that has spanned many continents. He started in 1968 in South Wales as a coal hewer and then moved onto mechanised longwalls as a “road ripper” for six years. He joined mine rescue in 1975 and attended night school and a part time course to become deputy. He then decided to further his education and attended full-time college for four years.
In 1986 he was appointed undermanager at Tower / Mardy colliery where he became known as “Jones the shark”. He then emigrated to South Africa in 1989 and became section manager within 10 months. He worked for Anglo American in Africa for two years before returning to the UK. There he worked briefly as a mine manager re-entering an abandoned mine before starting with International Mining Consultants.
Jones spent 3.5 years in India where he was project manager for GDK11A Singareni longwall mine and also did a three month stint developing a longwall mine in the Sinai desert, Egypt, before emigrating to Australia in 1996. Since then Jones has stuck with Capricorn Coal, working his way up to his present position as underground operations manager for Southern and Central German Creek.
ILN:What is your earliest mining memory?
GJ: Hearing colliers who were members of a Welsh choir harmonising whilst going down in the cage in Coedely Colliery in 1968.
ILN: What made you choose mining as a career?
GJ: I wanted to see if I could do it.
ILN: What was your favourite job in a coal mine?
GJ: I have enjoyed most of my career.
ILN: What was your least favourite job?
GJ: Being a consultant.
ILN: Who, or what, has most influenced your mining career?
GJ: An extremely streetwise development worker called Sid Hill.
ILN: What do you consider your best mining achievement?
NW: Achieving mine manager status in three continents including the UK, South Africa and Australia.
ILN: What was it like working in an Indian mine?
GJ: Working with the people instilled a sense of humility, as the workers took home pay that wasn’t even as much as my allowances. The Indian people had a culture where they accepted hardship as their lot.
ILN: You developed a longwall mine in the Sinai desert, Egypt – was the major challenge?
GJ: The thing I learnt at this place was respect for religious differences.
ILN: What was your scariest time in a coal mine?
GJ: An electrical flash from 20 metres behind me which lit up the whole area as if someone had turned a floodlight on.
ILN: What is your worst memory of coal mining?
GJ: Getting to pit bottom to hear that a colleague had been killed in another part of the mine.
ILN: Do you think that the day of the fully automated remotely operated face is near?
GJ: No.
ILN: What major improvements would you like to see on longwall operations?
GJ: More user friendly, simplified equipment. Equipment designers need to listen to operators when they invent or make equipment modifications.
