To remind people of the last blog, a small exploration company named Bre-X stumbled upon a find in a wild and desolate part of the Indonesian jungle. The reported figures of gold concentration from drilling[…]

“A lie can be so colossal that no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously”. So said Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf (see Wikipedia). This propoganda technique[…]

In Dead Man’s Gold, the Gresford disaster is an important event in Edryd (Ed) Evans’s consciousness. The gas leak and subsequent explosion killed 266 people and in terms of lives lost it was the second[…]

For some years after that meeting with Murdo at the historical society, I made an almost-yearly pilgrimage to his top loch. The long and arduous walk up the mountain to this special place always brings Murdo, his irritability[…]

Some of my fondest memories of childhood were of long summer holidays in the west of Scotland. And of the people I remember most clearly from those days, Murdo McMurdo sticks out in my mind.[…]

It was in Dougal’s bar that I was befriended by Ted. He was a retired businessman from Dublin, who professed that he had made three fortunes and lost two. It was on the occasion of[…]

I had been working for some months in a large geological services company based in North Wales, and we were both growing rather tired of each other, even after such a short period of time.[…]

Dead Man’s Gold started one very wet day as I sat amidst the ruins of the Rhosydd miners’ living quarters, located on the water shed half way between Blaenau Ffestiniog and Croesor. I read a[…]

In West Africa not much works unless it’s paid for up-front and in notes, American dollars are best. Most people have a hand-to-mouth existence, they may only have enough money to buy their next meal,[…]

After a few days I went back to work in the underground, somewhere I was more comfortable and happy. After all, as a VIP I could go up and down the shaft in the explosives[…]