Tunnel industry mourns Dai Heycock

Heycock was born in Neath, Glamorgan in 1933 and started his working career in the coal mines of South Wales; by the time he left, he had been promoted to ‘overman’ – or underground supervisor. He was a keen rugby player in his younger days. 

 In 1963, Heycock moved into tunnelling by joining Kinnear Moodie on the construction of the Victoria Line at Oxford Circus, London. He was responsible for the very complex upper ticket-hall work carried out beneath the temporary ‘umbrella’ erected to keep the traffic flowing. 
 
From there, he moved to a succession of tunnel jobs around the UK, including Coventry, Newcastle Metro, Dinorwic, Channel Tunnel, Jubilee Line and CTRL. Heycock also worked on projects overseas, including Kariba, Cairo and Hong Kong’s MTR. It was while in Hong Kong that he became one of the founding members of the Hong Kong Tunnelling Society and its first chairman. 

Heycock was technically competent in both soft ground and rock tunnelling and was of the school that preferred to spend much of its working day in the tunnel. He was a great character who will be remembered by all those who worked with him, for his sense of humour, friendship and his many humorous remarks. One of his more celebrated comments regarding a reference for a past employee was: ”I don’t remember him, and if I can’t remember him then he couldn’t have been much good.” 

Many in the tunnelling fraternity will have their own fond memories of Heycock who will be deeply missed by those that knew and worked with him.