EARLY on a Saturday morning some time ago my friend Stuart phoned because he was worried. He had left early for a walk with his dogs over the fields as he often does and ten minutes before returning home the little tykes had put their noses to the ground and took off, yelping as they went.

Stuart told me that he was shouting at them to stop but to no avail. I’ll bet my bottom dollar that there are readers out there who have experienced this. You can scream until the sun goes down but if terriers set their heads down and decide to go then that is where their cloth ears come to the fore

I got an accurate location from Stuart and told him I would be ready ASAP. I put my clothes on as quietly as a man in hurry could but my missus woke up to see me pulling on my hunting attire and demanded to know where I was going.

“It’s alright dear,” I said.  “Its just Stuart lost one of his dogs and I’m popping out to help him look for it. I won’t be long.”

“Aye right,” she said. “Just like the last time when we were going out for the surprise 40^th birthday party and you took off to help one of your pals look for his wee dog!”

I sheepishly replied that was different. It was the time I set off to help on a rescue and we never got back until 11.30pm. I almost missed the party but at least we returned with a very wet and tired terrier we retrieved from a field drain 100 yards from where he had gone to ground.

Susan knows me well enough by now. After 20 years of marriage she knows I’ll help anyone in the doggy fraternity if required as I’ve found myself in these situations before and have had help from many friends so she advised me to take a flask.

Stuart called me again to tell me that he was en route to pick me up and I put new batteries in my 15-foot knocker box and collar and grabbed ‘Suzie,’ my four-year-old bitch from the kennel.

She knows where we are going when I pick her out from the rest of the dogs with her collar in my hand. I then returned to the house to ensure my lamp was in order and my Maglite was in my bag with spare bulbs and batteries.

A wee tip here for all is upon returning from a night’s lamping; always recharge your lamp battery because if you don’t then as sure as eggs are eggs you’ll be caught out.

Stuart reckoned that he had a fair idea where the dogs were as he had hunted this ground many times over the years. He had a strong feeling they were away to the old disused mine that had been closed for a good few years and all the holes in the area had been filled in or blocked by the coal board.

There were some cave entrances that should have been boarded up and was covered with mesh. But a few locals, through times of hardship, had managed to open them up to excavate some coal for a wee bit of heat on a cold night

I have helped out on rescues in these situations before and one thing I was now glad of was the fact that it was sunny and dry.

The reason for this was, as any ex-miners will know, is when you have rain in the vicinity of these old workings you can have problems with black damp. It is a gas that emanates from old mines, normally rising up into the atmosphere without causing any problems but if there is rain the gas is held low to the ground and becomes lethal.

I am in the gas industry and I will never forget the time I once had to put on my breathing apparatus to try and retrieve two terriers that had ran into a cave behind a fox during the rain.

The owner had called me to give him a hand and when I arrived on site he explained to me that every time he had got within 30 yards of the entrance where he seen his dogs go in he was having breathing difficulties and chest pains and had to move away to fresh air.

I had brought out the Gascoseeker machine that we use at work and switched it on to check if the area was safe. The rain had stopped by the time I had arrived and my trusty machine was telling me that it was safe to enter the cave so I fastened a rope around my waist and gave the other end to the chap I was assisting, telling him to stand by just in case anything happened.

As I stepped into the cave I could see two terriers lying about ten yards in. They were both stone dead. There was no sign of Charlie so I can only presume what the old timers tell me is true – that when a fox has problems, whether it be from gas in mines or whether it be underground with a caved in tunnel, he can shut his breathing down to a peep and survive with virtually no oxygen.

I had brought out the two dogs to a very sad owner who thanked me for my trouble. As we drove to where Stuart had last seen his dogs I was hoping they hadn’t met with a similar fate.

We met up with young Stuart, big Stuart’s son, who by this time had gathered up a couple of friends to assist. As we were collaring up ‘Suzie’ young Stuart shouted that he could hear ‘Meg,’ one of Stuart’s lost terriers barking down a hole.

Stuart told me he had been at this spot in the past and had had to wait three hours before the dogs came out as it was a deep old mineshaft. He had covered the hole up the last time with old corrugated tin sheeting and earth so as not to encounter the same problem but foxy must have dug around it.

We sat and poured a hot cup of tea whilst sitting like a group of campers beside this hole and prepared ourselves for the work ahead. We cleared away the tin and rubble and after about half an hour of digging we found the entrance to the shaft but when I shone my lamp down it looked bottomless.

The hole was about two feet around but widened inside. We could hear ‘Jackal,’ Stuart’s other bitch, speaking from the hole as well as ‘Meg’ but it was distant. They sounded like they were miles away so Stuart decided to squeeze in through the entrance and see if he could call the dogs out.

He carries two sets of two-way radios whilst hunting so that everyone keeps in touch so he took one down the hole with him and set off. After a few seconds he reappeared and said that the inside of this shaft opened up to about four feet square but was very steep and he would need rope to go back down.

We made sure the rope was secured to a big tree outside the shaft and he set off again with me as company. I could see with my torch that parts of the ceiling from this shaft had fallen down in the past and the scary bit was that each piece was about six feet long and four feet wide and each must have weighed about half a ton.

I told Stuart not to shout for the dogs in case any more ceiling fell in and as we climbed down we could see that this shaft was supported by what looked like old telegraph poles that had been cut down with battens of wood spread across the roof. The poles were like sponges when touched and didn’t look very safe at all.

Isn’t it amazing how stupid we can be when it comes to helping our four legged friends?

We tried to make contact with the radios to the men outside but to no avail. I had to climb back up and tell them to give us a lot more rope as this was deeper than we had anticipated.

By the time I got back down to Stuart he was standing shining the lamp along to our right towards a side tunnel stretching for about ten yards but getting smaller all the way in.

We could hear the dogs barking like mad and knew they were with a fox but they sounded like they were a long way off. We crawled along this damp tunnel as far as we could go and the only way I can describe this is that it was like crawling along a small hallway with a tiny window at the end that we could never squeeze through.

I shone the lamp through the ‘window’ and couldn’t believe what I was seeing for the tunnel seemed to open up and you could have got five double decker buses inside the area.

The two of us sat there thinking what to do now. Then Stuart came up with a brilliant idea of fetching ‘Grip’ because he reckoned he would knock the two bitches away from the fox.

‘Grip’ was Stuart’s old dog terrier that would tackle a fox hard. The bitches would keep a fox at bay but no more whereas ‘Grip’ would tackle his quarry and put an end to matters quickly.

Stuart climbed out to get his dog and as I was waiting for him to reappear I thought to myself what the hell I was doing down a pitch black hole that is wet and dangerous. I thought that if this lot caves in I’ve got half an ounce of tobacco and a Mars bar in my pocket that would have to last me possibly a week before the mine rescue team could get me out. Not the brightest of things to do, eh!

Stuart returned with ‘Grip’ and we released him and he looked like a madman looking for a fight. After a couple of minutes we could hear ‘Grip’ engaging the fox.

Although Stuart said it would not be long now we should have known better. We sat patiently waiting in the dark with the lamp switched off to save the battery. It’s a funny feeling when you hold your hand one inch from your face and can’t see it.

After about 20 minutes I heard something moving towards us and switched on the lamp to see ‘Meg’ approaching. We put her on the lead and Stuart climbed out with her to the surface.

He returned with the flask and we sat drinking tea and joking about what any sane person would think if they knew what we were doing on a Sunday afternoon. Then a short while later ‘Jackal’ came back to us too and was escorted to the surface as well.

Time passed and we sat in the dark waiting for what seemed like hours but eventually ‘Grip’ returned to us with his tail wagging happily. I was never in my life so glad to see a terrier leave his quarry.

We came up to the surface to meet the lads who by this time had a fire going as it was dark and cold. We had been to ground for almost 11 hours.

The lads all mucked in to board up this damned hole and they must have shovelled about two tons of soil into it. Hopefully we will never find ourselves in this situation again.

Before I went home Stuart measured the rope and confirmed that the two of us had climbed 128 feet down a hole to retrieve the dogs.

It was almost 10.30pm when I got home, tired but smiling. I reflected upon what we had achieved that day but I also thought what a couple of clowns we had been to endanger ourselves in what could quite easily have been a very nasty situation.