Jackhammer

Instructions Noun [Latin: ‘Jackhammer’]

Imagine that you’re a Big Butch Miner stooping over a heavy pneumatic rock drill, like a Silverback Mountain Gorilla on a toddler’s scooter. With a very wide stance, contort your face with an almighty effort, whilst tightly grasping the imaginary Jackhammer handle, and pressing your arms up and down to the beat of the drums, as if you’re drilling down to the Earth’s Core with haste.

Origins

In 1871, the infamous South African diamond rush was in full-swing, catalysed by ‘The Star of South Africa’, an 83 Carat Diamond, sold on the Victorian London Market for an eye-watering £25,000 (equivalent to approximately £47 Trillion today).

Spurred on by dreams of impending fortune, diamond-lovers from far and wide descended onto Kimberley, transforming this once barren, sleepy South African Townville into a hysterical mad fever-pitch of lunacy!

…and there was no finer hysterical mad fevered lunatic than ‘Big Jim Wade’, a butch extroverted mercenary from Cape Town, with biceps the size of obese Hippos.

Ja inderdaad (yes indeed), this carnival peacock would strut around the Kimberley diamond fields, irritating countless gem miners with his outrageous claims, like “I once dug up a Sapphire bigger than a man’s skull ja!” and “I can cut through rock faster than an overactive Ostrich can run ja!”

There was no doubt that he was the fastest tunnel digger in Africa, due to his uniquely engineered double-barrelled compressed-air pneumatic rock drill. However, due to popular unpopularity, Big Jim Wade quickly became known as the ‘Big Grim Maid’, with most miners desperately wanting to remove him from their senses, including sight, hearing and smell.

Then one night, during an almighty booze-up, a pack o’ miners challenged ‘Big Grim Maid’ (Big Jim Wade) to the challenge of challenges, for an enticing gem of a prize. Literally.

They persuaded Jim that if he jackhammered his way straight down to the Earth’s Core, he could claim the ultimate Jewel of Jewels, a naturally hardened, boulder-sized diamond of everlasting, incorruptible purity, known as ‘Earth Heart’.

Big Jim Wade kissed both of his gargantuan biceps, and with a smug smirk swore to jackhammer to the core, at Sunrise.

True to his word, at dawn a silhouetted Big Jim Wade stooped over his hydraulic piston-powered drill, like a Silverback Mountain Gorilla on a toddler’s scooter. He was surrounded by an engrossed baying pack of hangover-sufferers, desperate to witness the disappearance of the bothersome puffed-up carnival peacock, once and for all.

Big Jim Wade did not disappoint.

When his almighty Jackhammer cranked into life, its pneumatic power pummelled rock to pebbly powder in an instant. With mammoth arm-muscle power firmly in control, Jim did in fact cut through rock faster than an overactive Ostrich could run, to the astonishment of an engrossed baying pack of hangover-sufferers.

Jim disappeared from sight within a blink of an eye, like he’d fallen through a trapdoor into a dark abyss. For the following hours, a small doomy contingent of doom-mongers sat around the hole, half-listening to the southbound pneumatic noise, whilst casually doom-mongering, forthwith accordingly.

Then all was quiet. Silent. Eerie. Hush.

Then there was much rejoicing.

“Big Grim Maid has strayed & stayed away! Hip-Hip-Hooray!”

All of the Gem Miners were happy!

Big Jim Wade was also happy, as (according to him), he discovered that although the ‘Earth Heart’ did not actually exist, he did discover that the Earth’s core was actually (according to him), a “cavernous super-sized steam room filled with floating jellyfish, that tickle a lot as they drift around ja!”.

Jim never resurfaced again, as he found his subterranean nirvana. The lasting legacy of his jackhammering skills still remain today, known as the Kimberley ‘Big Hole’, in honour of Big Jim Wade:

Kimberley 'Big Hole'

('Kimberley Tourism' image)