To Orwell Today,
re: ORWELL SOUTHWOLD TRIBUTE SONG

Hi Jackie,

Here are the words (written from Orwell's own) for DOWN THE MINE -- not yet put to music.

DOWN THE MINE
by Peter Cordwell

Four hundred yards down is far too far
For you and I and everyone we know
Let’s sit here nice and warm by the fire
And let the steel-bellied miners go
For them the descent is not even the start
They still have more than a mile to go
Their shift begins at the coalface hell
That you and I will never know
Sons follow Dads down the nearest shaft
They don’t get home until after dark
They all play football just in case
One of them makes it to St James’ Park

How could anyone libel such people?
How could anyone run down their lives?
How could anyone kill their communities?
How could anyone tell such lies?

The kind of heat and noise and dust
Is something that we’ve never felt
And we’ll never choose to spend a day
By the mad, screaming conveyor belt
A shift lasts for seven hours or more
Half naked and unbearably cramped
Unofficial breaks for tea and bread
Under the feeble light of the Davy Lamps
One day and always out of the blue
Miners are trapped by a sudden blast
We see photos of faces waiting above
Eyes wide open but heads downcast

How could anyone libel such people?
How could anyone run down their lives?
How could anyone kill their communities?
How could anyone tell such lies?

But there’s one last thing that’s left to report
From generations down the pits
They still share a real rapport
As the Iron Lady falls to bits

Best wishes,
Peter Cordwell

PS - St James' Park is the home ground of Newcastle United Football Club, a very passionate sporting arena!

Greetings Peter,

Doubleplusthanks for sending the Orwellian lyrics to DOWN THE MINE. Hope to hear them sung soon on You Tube.

All the best,
Jackie Jura

...conversation continues at ORWELL THE FAMILY MAN and ORWELL STATUE & SONG


ORWELL SOUTHWOLD TRIBUTE SONG

WORKING IN A COAL MINE, by Lee Dorsey, You Tube

ROAD TO WIGAN PIER and COAL SCRAMBLING IN WIGAN

PENNSYLVANIA IS WIGAN PIER

RUSSIAN COAL TO NEWCASTLE

JOURNEY TO ORWELL'S JURA (...There was a stack of coal in clear plastic bags destined, we assumed, for Barnhill. I imagined it to be a gift to Orwell from the coal-miners he'd immortalized in The Road to Wigan Pier. He said, "Our civilization is founded on coal and in the metabolism of the Western world the coal-miner is second in importance only to the man who ploughs the soil...You could quite easily drive a car right across the north of England and never once remember that hundreds of feet below the road you are on the miners are hacking at the coal. Yet in a sense it is the miners who are driving your car forward. Their lamp-lit world down there is as necessary to the daylight world above as the root is to the flower'. Orwell would be disgusted with the treatment of the coal-miners these days who are permanently out of work while coal is brought to Newcastle on Russian ships. I'd read about it in Canada just before leaving and had looked for coverage of outrage in England but I'd found none.

ENGLAND'S GOOD KING EDWARD (...King Edward's warmth and concern for the poor marked him out as different from previous monarchs. He had first visited South Wales in 1919, after the end of the war, when he had spent four days visiting slum areas and had gone down a pit. This was the first of his numerous tours as Prince of Wales to the industrial and impoverished parts of Britain....

POEMS & SONGS

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~

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