Spectrum of Welfare

The following poems have been composed from phrases contributed by visitors to the National Coal Mining Museum of England. All were collected on one day, 19^th February 2020, and drawn from information boards displayed around “The Hub”. The contributors were invited to write their chosen lines by selecting a coloured pen. The subsequent poems have been made from words written in the same colour. All the words used are those supplied by the visitors. My role has been to form them into reflective verse. I have retained mis-spellings and non-sequiturs as they contribute to the sense of the poems.

(Dave Alton – Coalshed Poet)

Red

I can’t tell a lie,

We were working on a seam:

Canary – Gas – Cage.

We are awkward, hard to use,

Dust made people hard to breath.

To pass a message

On eye-catching equipment:

Banners at a cost.

Explosion of welfare schemes,

Family in rescue teams.

Orange

Kept two canaries,

Two steel doors. Amazing days

Working on a seam.

It’s time to celebrate-

Wrestling, boxing, colliery bands.

Banners promote pride

And children-s entertainment

For use underground.

Danger still in existence,

Fun activities also.

Pink

What does remind you?

A mine? The helmet? Banners?

Colours and mottoes,

Gala days, celebrating

Once the most dangerous job.

Time improved greatly,

Family and friends rescue pride:

If bird feints – gas leak!

Coal mining was explosive,

Smoke disaster over years.

Green

Encourage miners

Struggle for gala of change;

Everythink proto.

Equipment, holiday silent,

Built family, love and friendship.

Turquoise

Join colliery bands,

Once the most dangerous job

Still chirping away.

Games in London used to ruffle,

Creating cuts and bruises.

Purple

Friends, smoke and helmets,

Draped in black to mark a death

Behind pit banner.

A very dangerous job,

Disasters still in existence.

Deadly days happened,

A colliery incident,

Gala team performed.

Celebrating time rescue,

Trained bands in the museum.

Black

All of a sudden

Everything deadly silent,

Danger with the lads.

Colliery bands were waiting

With family and friends by hell.

A sudden something,

Working a seam a yard high:

One hour in you knew.

Men in black killed or injured,

Thousands, I’ve cried, carried out.

We would rush for help,

All named still in existence

Until formal death.

Coal mining is dangerous,

But safety rules made us think.

Unusual happened.

Volunteers seriously

Went about today

To really mark areas

That mine inspectors once saw.

Telling Stories

Telling Stories

(Poem composed from conversations with visitors to the National Coal Mining Museum on 5^th February, National Story Telling Day)

(1)

Granddad was from Fife,

Miner all his working days,

Mainly in Stoke, though.

Dad escaped in a spitfire

And I live now in Salisbury.

(2)

“Children, whose bag’s this,

And where is your group leader?

That’s it, two by two.”

Crocodile slouching its way

To the coach in neat order.

(3)

Thirteen’s old enough

For the joinery shop:

Time served and ready.

When the kids came, where’s the brass?

From rip saw then to ripper.

(4)

Saturday scrum-halves,

From pit props to prop forwards,

All in the same league.

Come Monday, under the sports’ field,

Players back at their tackle.

(5)

My brothers went down,

Dad, of course, and my uncles.

I went to college.

Gran gave me ten bob each week,

“Just ‘til you’re working.” she’d say.

Dave Alton

(Coalshed Poet)

Spirits of Caphouse

(For Halloween)

Silent showers speak,

Disembodied voices call…

Old soap! Ghostly poo!

Autumn draft or cold breath,

Door on history left ajar.

Scent of carbolic,

Singing round the bath house,

Rose just passing through.

There’s dirty side and clean side,

Old miner’s other side now.

Tin bath of coal dust,

Hot water and open fires:

No money, no soap.

Words, like lives, pass in spirit:

Scares! Blood! Coughing! Screaming!

Zombie pit pony

Hurries a tub of shadows,

Dark into darkness.

Souls left to wander alone;

How lost when the lamp goes out.

Look! Look! A huge rat!

How scary then is the thought,

What size is the cat?

What is there to be scared of?

“The Deputy!” A collier quips.

Scatter of ashes,

Last words, lost mates, list of those

Beyond the echo.

Spirits abide in the coal-black,

Voices creaking like timbers.

(This poetry chain was composed by Dave Alton of Coalhouse Poets using words and phrases contributed by visitors to the Bath House and the underground tour at Caphouse Colliery, National Mining Museum of England.)

Bluecap

Should you stray down a mine, deep underground,

Listen! Listen! What’s that noise? What’s that sound?

A distant knock, knock, knocking, tap! Tap! Tap!

That’s no miner mining, it’s Bluecap!

Bluecap is a goblin, size of a child,

With an old wrinkled face, white whiskers and wild,

Wild eyes burning with blue fire that can see

Into the future, what’s going to be.

A flood? A cave-in? Gas ready to blow?

Listen for the warning, Bluecap will know.

A rap, rap, rapping and he’s trying to say,

Danger! DANGER! Time to be away!

Back to the surface and best not be slow

For there’s trouble coming down, down below.

He might sound like someone most folk would thank,

Except for his mischief, he enjoys a prank.

Tools go missing, so does the miners’ snap

And colliers will say, “That’s Bluecap!”

If there’s a full coal tub that’s been left alone

A blue flame might appear, then all on its own

That tub moves and to the shaft finds its way,

And Bluecap will expect a putters pay

Left in some quiet spot to settle the debt;

No pitman would want Bluecap being upset.

So, if you happen to be underground

And see a few coins left lying around,

Let them be, even though no one’s about,

Or Bluecap may stop you finding your way out.

Has it become hotter, the air turned stale?

Your lamp begins to flicker and fail.

Listen! Listen! There’s a crack! There’s a groan!

And you’re in the dark, down there, on your own.

You could try shouting, but no one hears you,

There’s a shuffling sound as something nears you,

Then, in the dark, a feint blue light shines through;

That will be Bluecap, he’s coming…FOR YOU!

Dave Alton

Tommy the Trapper

My name is Tommy, I’m just six years old,

I work in the dark and the damp and the cold

Underground in a coal mine, down, down deep,

Twelve hours a day and not a minute’s sleep.

Twelve hours a day with a rope in my hand,

Sat in a tunnel that’s too low to stand,

I listen for a knock, then know what to do,

Pull on the rope, let the coal tub through.

There’s a trapdoor close by here where I sit,

A trapdoor I have to make sure is kept shut.

Beyond it, leading away from my place,

Another tunnel runs up to the coal face

Where my dad kneels with his pick cutting coal,

My mum just behind him shovelling it all

Into tubs for my sisters, ten and nine

To push and pull the length of the mine,

To the shaft bottom from where, at a shout,

Some folks up top will haul it all out.

It’s important that once I’ve let a tub pass

The trapdoor swings shut because of the gas.

There’s fire damp and choke damp, so grown-ups say,

We need the fresh air to blow them away.

For six days a week it’s here that I sit,

Tommy the Trapper, the lad down the pit.

                                                                                                                 Dave Alton

A Life Amongst Diamonds

Not brittle or smooth

and resistant to a hit

the rock was a block

Water flows through the valley

crashing into the edges

Strong, tough, working hard

firm, fierce or so it seems

rock solid brave, thick

The keeper of history

a look into the pastime

A wonderland of

light, shimmering wealth that

comes from underground

Washing away sadness shown

making dark struggles unknown

Treasure hidden here

and me, yes you can looker

hide me again for someone

Caphouse pit baths are old 

quiet still, like never before

Diamonds are forever

not for Christmas or birthdays

a miner I am not, luckily

This poetry chain was created on the Caphouse site

Of National Mining Museum for England. It is the product

Of a writing workshop held there on Sunday, 7^th July 2019.

When We Were Kings

In those days when steam and smoke

belched from chimneys in our towns

We were the kings of industry

from coal we forged our crown.

In the heartlands of the north

below field and towering mill

we ripped the coal and churned it out -

we had strength and we had skill

In unison we rode the cage -

worked in thunder, breathed the dust

to feed the ever hungry beast

and earn a grateful nation's trust

But now those days have been and gone

we're never going back

where the coal flowed like a river

rumbling dark and black

to every corner of our land

by canal or rail or road

the people needed coal and

we colliers bore the load.

The banter on the coal face

the scream of the machines

the conveyer flying past us

lives only in our dreams.

So now we stand where the pit was

at the top of the slag heap hill

the noise has gone, just birdsong,

but we can hear it still.

Tim Fellows 2018