I Can Remember When All This Was Coalfields
 


What larks they got up to down the pits!
Friends and relatives having adventures underground
and then supping a few pints to relive the day’s glories.
Whole villages formed like rich seams
dedicated to the sheer fun of it all.
 
They’d be aghast at the jobs now.
Chained to a call centre desk,
battery farmed for utilities and finance,
grafting at the end of a phone
with a whole hour between fag breaks.
 
And there’s no exemption for the lasses.
In years gone by they’d sit at home
thrilling to needlecraft and bairns,
fairy-tale princesses in terraced castles.
Now the womenfolk have no time for any of that.
 
Dark times in the North,
where Health & Safety stalks in High Vis
and your call is very important to us.

Ben Banyard

If you have any thoughts on this poem, Ben Banyard  would be pleased to hear them.