Tunnel Vision

While I was driving recently I remembered some very ‘hands on’ research I did for ‘Oblivion Black’. I had intended to go down ‘Big Pit’ around three years ago to get some experience underground. The ‘Big Pit’ is a former working coal mine which has been turned into a museum about Wales industrial past. However the day I went the conditions weren’t right to go down underground.

Bugger.

It was all very interesting looking around the museum above ground but that wasn’t what I needed.

They were heroically hungover and were dressed in t-shirts and flip flops.

So a few years later when the book was more advanced I begin researching other options. I discovered that you could go potholing in the Dan Yr Ogof show caves in Glyn Neath. So I duly booked up and read the instructions which included the statement that I would get wet. i prepared accordingly with a change of clothes. Parking up I soon found out that I was going to be joined on my cave adventure by a stag party from the South East. They were heroically hungover and were dressed in t-shirts and flip flops. Our guide managed to get the stag party some suitable caving attire and off we went.

Within minutes of entering the caves it was like we’d crossed into a different world. The uneven terrain of stalagmites and stalactites was exactly how I envisaged Oblivion Black’s Sanctuary. We were all dressed in overalls, a hard hat and a light connected to a battery on our belts. There were holes in the rock to climb through and tunnels where you could choose to crawl through. The stag party turned the same green as some of the rocks, but I thought ‘Fuck it.’ and went for the crawl. It was while crawling through the tunnel that my battery got caught on one of the rocks and very briefly my light flickered off. I was engulfed in some of the total darkness I’d ever known and felt a stag of intense, primeval terror. It was fleeting but very tangible. This went directly into the novel as an event one of the characters goes though.

It was an amazing experience being in those other worldly surroundings and before too long the stag party and I were back into the fresh air. I couldn’t help but look behind him as I walked away and think about that deep, inky blackness.