"I was devastated by being sent down," he recalls. "All my buddies were going into the RAF. We appealed. But it was no good. It just fell on deaf ears. The descent into the lift that took you into the mine was known as the initiation drop and none of us will ever forget it. You went into the cage with trepidation. It was supposed to descend at 30ft per second, but they let it go at 70ft per second.