In the Tamar Valley is a superb facility - Morwellham Quay. One of the attractions is a trip into an old copper mine. It was here that the drill boys worked - their job to hold the spikes as the hammer fell. Their spells of work lasted a week at a time... and they spent the whole seven days in the confines of the mine chambers. They also had to light the fuses... and when these didn't ignite immediately, they had to check them - at such times, catastrophe visited too often...

Seven days, seven nights - down tunnel and shaft,
I live and I work out my season;
My job at the workface... to steady the drill,
Yet my short life it lacks any reason.
By twenty my hearing has blistered and gone;
I've more than the darkness to fear -
For the noise, the powders, the unseen rock-fall...
I'll be dead by my fortieth year!