When I was a 15 year old screenboy working at Marine pit in Cwm we boys were forever trying to sneak off a few minutes early to be first to bath. But we were terrorised by a timekeeper who wasn't averse to hiding between the wagons in the sidings to catch us. From an injury received he was minus one arm so hence his nickname "The One Arm Bandit".
Conversely the other timekeeper was called "The Crook with the Book". Then we had Dickie Butterballs for whatever reason and my grandfather from his expertise with racing pigeons was Bill Pigeon and my father who worked with him as colliers was Ike Pigeon.
The list was endless - when I moved on to the steel industry at Ebbw Vale we had one young lad about six stone soaking wet who always seemed to be getting things wrong and when challenged would raise is arms up and state "it wasn't me". So he soon became "Hands Up".
Dillwyn from Cwm
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