Here is a photo of my maternal grandmother.  After my grandfather died leaving her with three children (one my mother) she opened a boarding house for miners in Brakpan, South Africa.  Ma Brett’s Place it was called.  For many years or so, she cooked, cleaned, and cared for the single miners working the local mines.  At last a ginger-haired Irishman, an Armature Winder on a mine near Nigel, managed to persuade her to marry him.  So she closed the boarding house and, in essence, they lived happily ever after.   It was she who prepared a roast chicken with pork sausage stuffing every Sunday and while the adults talked, I was allowed to play with the gramaphone and listen to the only records she owned: a complete recording of Rigoletto.  I still have those unplayable records somewhere, and only this photo to recall those times by.

A sobering set of conclusions from a volume called Safety Guidelines for Mineral Exploration in Western Canada published by AMEBC.

Twenty-three years of data compiled by the Health & Safety Committee focuses attention on the most common causes of exploration accidents. The following observations reflect this experience and are provided for the benefit of present and future exploration personnel.

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