LIKE A PENDULUM

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 156, 30 December 1944, Page 6

LIKE A PENDULUM

SON SAVES INJURED FATHER . .By grabbing his feet and holding him head downwards, as he swung ™>el $ce Q<iulum..i!i a 565 yards dee? pit shaft, a Yorks pit worker saved the life of his 64-year-old father. r y1? ,years Percy Houlton, 30, of Gold Links Lane. West Melton, and his father, Bob Houlton. had been jointly responsible for the ropes and tackle in the winding shafts of the Manvers Main Colliery. One night Percy and his father were standing on the top of a pit cage as they worked half-way down the shaft. A brick fell from somewhere, hitting the father on the head, and fracturing his skull. He reeled backwards into the 2ft space between the side of the cage and the wall of the shaft. As he fell Percy's arm shot out and grabbed him by the heels. Bob Houlton hung head downwards over the side of the cage,'with a drop of 200 yards below him. If the cage were lowered he might be crushed against the side of the shaft, while a sup- might' have sent father and son hurtling to death. There was only one thing to be done, and by a super-human effort Percy Houlton did it. Inch by inch he manoeuyred his senseless 12-stone burden until he could swing him through the opening in the side into the cage. Then lying on the roof, with one arm over the side supporting his father m the cage, he signalled the cage to the bottom.