Hamilton mining voids and Queen Elizabeth II: Former Newcastle lord mayor John McNaughton shares his intriguing stories

For the discreet former long-time Newcastle lord mayor and Hunter surveyor for a remarkable 61 years has worn many hats in his career.

And he knows the Hunter region inside out from his work. Lesser known though is about the day back in 1988 when he kept Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip waiting so he could change his pants. But more on that later.

McNaughton contacted Weekender recently to yarn about the lost 1854-1873 coal mine at Tomago, near Hexham, when the site was being redeveloped in 1948 for the giant Courtaulds fibre factory.

"Our firm did all the original drawings for that site, but that pre-dated my starting as a surveyor, of course," McNaughton said.

"All the original survey maps were on linen, not paper. We still have some today, but a lot of work (and landscapes) have changed over the years."

One prime example might be Glenrock Reserve's missing cave visited in September 1842 by legendary Prussian explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, and by co-incidence near McNaughton's Merewether home.

"I know where the cave is, or rather was. It's destroyed now, but I believe it appears as a shadow in an old aerial photograph taken of the site by pilot Keith Hilder, once our printer of plans and the founder of Aeropelican airport," McNaughton said.

Perhaps it was McNaughton's previous role as Hunter Region Commissioner of Scouts as well as serving as Newcastle lord mayor for nine years that first drew his attention to the coastal forest of Glenrock. Or perhaps it was just his insatiable curiosity that caused him to investigate the Glenrock mystery. And that same curiosity has today made him incredibly knowledgeable.

In a recent wide-ranging interview at home with his beloved wife Margaret, where they'd just celebrated their amazing 60th wedding anniversary, John McNaughton revealed he was probably the last of his profession to survey a Lower Hunter pick-and-shovel coal mine operation.

Now 85, he's still very active in his business Palmer Bruyn, but, for past decades, he's also been surveying around old, disused 19th century Hunter mine sites often finding out about their unintended, often hazardous legacy.

One example is years ago when he was once surveying parts of Merewether and a fellow surveyor working in long grass trod on part of a fallen barbed wire fence.

"Then on investigating this he found an open 80ft (24 metre) deep mine air shaft close by. That had to be capped before any house building began," he said.

Such finds are worrying, but really not that unusual in a largely undermined inner-city. McNaughton said there was a similar, but capped, deep hole in Lawson Street, Hamilton.

"It must have been OK, because there's now a two-storey building on top of it. There was also one under the old Royal Newcastle Hospital uncovered during building. While excavating, workers burst into it. They didn't know it was there. I was the surveyor on that job," he said.

Surveyor McNaughton said his most depressing job, with a police escort, was putting survey pegs into the ground in front of soon-to-be-displaced squatters at 'Hollywood', the 1930s Depression-era shanty town, near Jesmond, more than 60 years ago.

"The residents knocked out our pegs as soon as I drove them into the ground. It's still all bushland, but not for long. It's now in the path of the new $450 million, four-lane inner-city bypass to link Rankin Park to Jesmond, and then on to Sandgate.

"I'd been a trainee surveyor then for my employer Mr Bruyn. The land had been sold by a mining company to Hoyts. They wanted vacant possession of the whole site to create the Skyline Drive-In further south. There should be a major archaeological dig on site while there is still time," he urged.

The huge site of the former Skyline Drive-In theatre itself off Croudace Street is now covered in modern houses, but the land still holds one of John McNaughton's saddest memories.

"It was the site of a such a tragedy. A young boy cyclist died in the open air there for lack of oxygen. An old, shallow mine tunnel close to the surface in bushland beyond the Skyline's boundary fence had collapsed, probably years before," he said.

"This was possibly around 1958. Two boys were cycling down into this trench and then up the other side. But one lad fell off his bike in there and died."

The other boy tried to help, then raised the alarm. McNaughton blames the freak, tragic accident that particular day on 'black damp', a poisonous mine gas drifting around the old workings. Because the methane involved was heavier than air it stayed in the trench, still deadly despite being beneath an open sky. It was a million-to-one fatal accident.

Upon investigating, as part of further survey work, McNaughton said he found another void that also needed to be filled.

One of the most surprising tales, however, comes from behind the scenes from Margaret McNaughton. It concerns the Newcastle visit of Queen Elizabeth on May 10, 1988, when John was lord mayor. During a break in ongoing official duties, Prince Philip leaned across to McNaughton and said: "John, your missus tells me you've torn your strides."

It was true. Beneath the flowing mayoral robes, lord mayor McNaughton was hiding a tear in his trousers and his knee was bleeding. The hole was hidden behind paper clips while his driver rang ahead to ferry in a second pair of pants to save the day.

McNaughton's pants had snagged on the extended wings of two seagulls of the official insignia on the mayoral car's bumper bar.

"I was going around the car when I heard this terrific rip. Our son, Christopher, was soon coming in with a replacement pair of pants. Luckily, I had two suit pants. A tailor had once told me that pants wear out at twice the rate of coats, which are usually hanging over a chair," McNaughton said.

The Queen, hearing of the incident, said, "Show me you poor thing", then adding, "We'll wait until you change your pants." Meanwhile, Philip wanted to personally meet Chris, the hero of the hour who had by then rushed to City Hall with the substitute pants.

"Prince Philip especially was a very interesting person, so well informed," McNaughton recalled.

"I mentioned the clean coal concept, which was in the news then, and he knew more about it than I did! And this was in 1988. I was very surprised."

But this tale has only scratched the surface of the working life and his long stint as Newcastle's lord mayor. His other stories touch on such things as Aboriginal reconciliation, having the foresight to create the vast Summerhill tip and virtually doubling the size of the city's Cathedral Park.

So, as they say . . . watch this space.

Editor's note: This story was written before Buckingham Palace confirmed the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

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