Looking for the Light

  

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Voices from the Coalshed invited contributions on the theme of “Bright spots In A Dark Year”. As ever the variety that arrived proved the worth of the endeavour. I suspect the contributors were not expecting a presentation like this.

I have taken one phrase from each contribution and presented them as a single unit. In times (very) past, when writing was first emerging, there was no punctuation, upper and lower case letters or spacing. This just seemed a way of unifying this piece.

 It is also a challenge to the viewer. I say viewer rather than reader. I challenge you to look and make your own connections, perhaps illuminating a moment for you.

The contributors are:

Ian Schofield              Sharon Healy             Martin Burhouse                   Anne Bradley

            Rebecca Walton                                 Julie Eliot                    Sally-ann Burley

Mike Keeton               Amy Boothroyd                     Kate Fraser

 

Dave Alton

Writer in Residence

National Coal Mining Museum

When Coal Was King

 

There was a colliery in Pelton Fell,

Next to the homes that the miners did dwell.

 

The trucks rolled down to Stella Gill,

Those wagons were filled by the miners' skill.

 

In 12 hour shifts they hewed at the seams,

They expected nothing, but still held their dreams.

 

Their children scampered between those rail lines,

Playing their games of sixes and nines.

 

The caged canaries blinked in the sunlight,

When they closed the pit at the Pelton site.

 

The Tallyman was the one who was counted last,

For The Mining Industry is now framed in the past.

 

They hold a Gala in Durham each year,

The flags and banners they proudly do bare.

 

They march behind their Colliery Band,

Their heads held high as they pass The Grand.

 

There now are museums that regale their story,

There have been plenty of disasters, but not much glory.

 

There was no glamour in mining for coal,

It broke their backs and it crushed their soul.

 

Those miners were exploited and deprived of trust,

Their gain from labour was lungs full of dust.

 

The cost of coal was more than it was worth,

For the Durham miners, it was Hell on Earth.

 

                                                                 Jimmy Scope

After The Storm

 

pale blue shimmers

through puffed-up bruises

wailing winds

and charcoaled souls, burnt a little too long

is a new day breaking

while the thunder’s rumble grumbles distant?

 

will we navigate still-muddy puddles

pattering around

searching for words

I love you, come to me, you’re my mother, my sister

but settling on a dirty joke instead

while we trip and rise

 

is it a new day

where crickets and birds sing, finding their place

or just a prelude to new formed tongues of thunder

and lightning striking us jagged

again

 

I think I see another patch of blue

 

                                                                   Yash Seyedbagheri

 

Voices in the Coalshed - November

 

November

 

So to November,

This time to remember,

Amidst all the gloom and mist,

 Brilliant moments still persist.

 

2020 has been over shadowed, and yet, looking back, there are moments to be recalled with pleasure. Maybe important, maybe trivial, but bright spots nonetheless. For me, fish and chips on the sea front at Hornsea.

I'm going to make a word collage of such bright spots for Voices in the Coalshed and the virtual museum at the National Coal Mining Museum.

So please send me your

Moment to Remember

to

voicesinthecoalshed@gmail.com

Dave Alton

Writer in Residence

National Coal Mining Museum