"Since my retirement, I realized that No. 3 mine could be re-opened for tourists."

Robert Rocky Williams was born and raised in Cumberland. His mother Agnes was born in Cumberland the year the hospital was built, in 1895 and his father John Samuel Williams was born in North Wales and started in the coal mines there.

Rocky's Story

"It was a natural thing to follow in the foot steps of your father and start in the mines after completing school. When you grew up in a mining town, I was asked if I wanted to work in the engineering department and, unfortunately, I said yes. I thought later, as our principal J.C. Tonks had advised, that I should have stayed in school and gone on to university like some others had.

"When you grew up in a mining town, it was a natural thing to follow in the footsteps of your father and start in the mines after completing school. I was asked if I wanted to work in the engineering department, and unfortunately, I said yes. I thought later, as our principal J.C. Tonks had advised, that I should have stayed in school and gone on to university like some others had. After qualifying as a BC mine surveyor I asked about examinations to possibly become a mine manager, as my father was, and was told that I was going to have to spend five years working underground before being eligible to write the examinations. It was one of the requirements that changed my course of action. I did not mind going underground to survey but I did not want to stay down there working for five years.