Walking Home

A long day working in the pit

Knowing that we've done our bit

Cough and spit, cough and spit

As we are walking home 

We're tired but we've done our job

We've done it all for just five bob

Don't cry, my children, don't you sob

'Cos we are walking home

Blackened like the dark of night

A bath waits by the warm fire light

Once that's done we'll feel alright

When we've done walking home

Seems ages since I've eaten owt

It's like sandpaper on me throat

A beer or two'll get me vote

But we're still walking home

Just one spark; that's all it took

All the mine and village shook

We escaped by pure blind luck

Now we are walking home

Where are Herbert and his lads?

All those kids without their dads

It's well beyond just feeling sad

'Cos they're not walking home

Choked by firedamp, blown to bits;

Burnt and charred in a fiery blitz

It's enough to make you lose your wits

But we're still walking home

Thinking of our brothers, lost,

into their fate casually tossed 

By owners that don't know the cost

For they are driving home

Their mining life came to an end

Husband, father, brother, friend

And now their weary way they wend

Forever walking home

Tim Fellows May 10th 2018

30 Years On

(For the 30^th Anniversary of the National Coal Mining Museum of England)

There is a hole in Yorkshire,

And extraction of earth,

Of rock,

Of grit,

Of coal,

Of King Coal,

Of Yorkshire coal.

But the king was dethroned,

His subterranean palace

Thrown over,

Thrown open to the people,

Hurriers of their heritage,

Guided by miners

Hewing history

For telling tales:

“How many men work down a pit?

About half!”

Miners,

Making an exhibition of themselves,

Of their ways and wisdom and words

On tongues savoured with coal dust.

A score and ten

Since the men marched back

To carry their lamps down

Illuminating faces,

And facets

And fossils

So keen eyes,

The public eye,

 Can see

What might have been left buried,

Painting coal streaked portraits

Of how it was

For so long,

For three decades now

And winding on.

Hope came to Caphouse,

Democracy of memory

Curated

So this industry,

These lives lived

Above ground,

And below ground,

In absolute darkness,

In the absolution of light,

Are not lost

In grassed over spoil heaps of time past.

This hole in Yorkshire,

For the whole of Yorkshire,

For the whole of England…

This hole! This HOLE!

Is mine!

Dave Alton