|
| Digging Beneath the Headstones |
|
|
|
Page 2 of 3 One particular disagreement revolved around a plan to convert an old shaft to maximise its potential. Cecil insisted he knew what he was doing but the young Texan insisted it was a technical impossibility. If anything is guaranteed to raise the temperature of a Cornish mining man, it is to tell him something is impossible. The response went something like: “I’ll prove you wrong, you raw arsed young Yank. What the hell do you know? You’re nothing but theory.” Cecil went ahead and the job was successfully completed. So much for theory!  Cecil Coombe, circa 1930's Northern Rhodesia. The argument did nothing to endear the two men to one another but did not dampen Louis Ferguson’s odyssey through mineral exploration. His three children were all born in different mining areas of the world: Patrick in Northern Rhodesia, Neil in Johannesburg and Pamela in the San Francisco del Oro mining area of Chihuahua, Mexico. True to form though, all were raised on stories and legends of their Cornish mining heritage and, of course, on Cornish pasties. Pasties were even on the menu during their voyage across a war torn Atlantic Ocean in 1943 from Cape Town to New York, quite a feat I’d say. Cecil Coombe junior was, however, quite a different character from his father and most of the other men of both families. He was shy and sensitive; he had, along with his two sisters, been raised mainly by his mother as his father was almost constantly away working. When the family was reunited, he was forced by his father to work underground and train as an electrician in the mines, a job he hated and an environment he feared. With the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined a Rhodesian unit of the Royal Navy, probably as much to get away from a bullying and overpowering father as to fight for a cause. His wartime experiences left him severely traumatised, so much so that he spent the next 20 years in a mental institution in Bulawayo. |
|||||