Coal Not Dole
Music Player
Summary
Here are two versions of this song: The video is Norma Waterson singing "Coal Not Dole" live at The Kalamazoo Club, London, Friday 13th March 2009. The audio track is Kate Rusby from her new record: When They All Looked Up. The song was written by Kay Sutcliffe, the wife of a miner from the Kent coalfields, during the mid-80s dispute between the Conservative government of Maggie Thatcher and the miners’ unions. Kay's poem was set to music by Paul Abrahams. Kate Rusby noted: “The period of time making this album coincided with the 40th anniversary of the miners’ strike so this song jumped into my head. I am from mining stock, my maternal grandad Earnest Senior was a miner as was my lovely, gentle Uncle Stanley Norman, both no longer with us. I was 10 when it began, and remember it well, saw the destruction of so many men and their families. The great thing about folk music is it documents the lives of humans, their struggles, their dreams, their lives. My mum used to sing this song and always struggled to get through it without tears. It’s such an incredibly powerful song and just felt like the perfect time to record it. I recorded my vocals (there were tears!) wearing a tweed hat my Uncle Stan gave me. This song is for my mum, her little brother and her dad.”
Lyrics
It stands so proud, the wheel so still,
A ghost like figure on the hill.
It seems so strange, there is no sound,
Now there are no men underground.
What will become of this pit yard
Where men once trampled, faces hard?
Tired and weary, their shift done,
Never having seen the sun.
Will it become a sacred ground?
Foreign tourists gazing round
Asking if men once worked here,
Way beneath this pithead gear.
Empty trucks once filled with coal,
Lined up like men on the dole.
Will they e’er be used again
Or left for scrap just like the men?
There’ll always be a happy hour
For those with money, jobs and power;
They’ll never realise the hurt
They cause to men they treat like dirt.
What will become of this pit yard
Where men once trampled, faces hard?
Tired and weary, their shift done,
Never having seen the sun.
There’ll always be a happy hour
For those with money, jobs and power;
They’ll never realise the hurt
They do to men they treat like dirt.
