Baware Miners Beware

Beware Miners Beware

There was coal in stockpiles, coal from abroad

And dark blue lines drawn across the coal road.

Convoys of grim buses in greens and greys,

Prowling the length of British motorways.

Beware, miners, beware.

The rule of law, but the law is partial,

The rule is fear when the law is martial.

What matter then the ballot or the vote?

It’s who wields the baton in the last resort.

Beware, miners, beware.

It wasn’t policing some might celebrate,

Policing by consent, consent of the state,

And how much money so readily found

To keep centuries of coal deep underground?

Beware, miners, beware.

The pit was never a romantic place,

In the dusty dark, hewing a coal face,

In the dusty dark with the troubling damps,

Keeping wary eyes for the blue-flamed lamps.

Beware, miners, beware.

 It wasn’t, though, for welfare the pit closure plan,

It wasn’t for workers the shut-downs began,

It wasn’t for climate change they stopped the coal;

But break the miners’ union, break them all!

Beware, miners, beware.

There’s not a cob cut underground anymore,

With collieries fading into folk lore,

A heritage experience, and yet,

Without reminders, people will forget.

Be aware, miners, be aware.

                                                                Dave Alton