Location: Pooley Country Park - In the park area, by the car park and visitors' centre.
Advice to A Geordie Miner Lad In Pooley
Fool’s gold is hidden within the dark, necrotic shale
but black gold is the secret of the deeper places.
Don't hit that sandstone with your hammer, nor the ironstone balls,
it will bounce back with a ring & strike a spark.
Don't stop to think of those forests, they were so long ago
they are the abode of giant scorpions.
Gan canny down here kidda, & divvent mess with your mates,
the mice will get your bait if you're not careful.
Barry Patterson
but black gold is the secret of the deeper places.
Don't hit that sandstone with your hammer, nor the ironstone balls,
it will bounce back with a ring & strike a spark.
Don't stop to think of those forests, they were so long ago
they are the abode of giant scorpions.
Gan canny down here kidda, & divvent mess with your mates,
the mice will get your bait if you're not careful.
Barry Patterson
Living Echoes
The desultory flap of vent doors laid itself on the child’s ears
as flare lamps sputtered. The pregnant woman sweated,
chains slung below heavy belly, chaffing as she heaved the full cart
from the white-eyed hewer to claustrophobic adit.
Proclamation! Prohibiting women from underground toil.
Yet mothers still strove to rear sons destined to follow fathers
to their gritty heritage. Daily grind for womenfolk with metallic bathtub drag,
awaiting the return of begrimed miners, spewed from the hurtling cage.
The wail of the widow’s soft keening as her man brought, black, unblemished,
from beneath collapsed pit roof. His heart, like today’s winding gear, now still.
Tell-tale creak of tree-props had issued a grave warning-
unheeded, as comrades struggled at their stint.
These voices, still clamour, layered
beneath noise of motorway, sparkling chatter of children’s play,
drum of woodpecker, squawk of jay --- softness of damselfly,
harkening to the whisper of the Carboniferous.
Gina Coates
as flare lamps sputtered. The pregnant woman sweated,
chains slung below heavy belly, chaffing as she heaved the full cart
from the white-eyed hewer to claustrophobic adit.
Proclamation! Prohibiting women from underground toil.
Yet mothers still strove to rear sons destined to follow fathers
to their gritty heritage. Daily grind for womenfolk with metallic bathtub drag,
awaiting the return of begrimed miners, spewed from the hurtling cage.
The wail of the widow’s soft keening as her man brought, black, unblemished,
from beneath collapsed pit roof. His heart, like today’s winding gear, now still.
Tell-tale creak of tree-props had issued a grave warning-
unheeded, as comrades struggled at their stint.
These voices, still clamour, layered
beneath noise of motorway, sparkling chatter of children’s play,
drum of woodpecker, squawk of jay --- softness of damselfly,
harkening to the whisper of the Carboniferous.
Gina Coates
Pooley Pit Ponies
Not for us the wild, white stampede through the Camargue.
Ours a more laboured journey, spumed and sprayed
with belching dust and blackened showers.
Daily shifts of burden, pulling tools, carting coal
hewed from Smithy, Ryder and other Pooley seams.
No wild abandon here. We picked our way with care;
hooves, skin, ears, nostrils on guard for any change
as darkness hemmed us in at every turn.
But we too were surely gifted from the gods
to pit our wits with men, locking horns
with snorting, charging, monstrous, bullish hell,
that consumed our sight and mortal lives.
A bond formed through the camaraderie that comes
when each is so dependent on the other.
Joy came with the tangy treat of apple, sniffed,
nudged and nibbled from a miner’s pocket,
or tender, rough caress on mane or rump.
Yearly freed, we bolted in blind, frenzied stampede.
Frolicked, two short weeks, in open fields and sensed,
way up above us, light and blueness of the sky.
Margaret Torr
Ours a more laboured journey, spumed and sprayed
with belching dust and blackened showers.
Daily shifts of burden, pulling tools, carting coal
hewed from Smithy, Ryder and other Pooley seams.
No wild abandon here. We picked our way with care;
hooves, skin, ears, nostrils on guard for any change
as darkness hemmed us in at every turn.
But we too were surely gifted from the gods
to pit our wits with men, locking horns
with snorting, charging, monstrous, bullish hell,
that consumed our sight and mortal lives.
A bond formed through the camaraderie that comes
when each is so dependent on the other.
Joy came with the tangy treat of apple, sniffed,
nudged and nibbled from a miner’s pocket,
or tender, rough caress on mane or rump.
Yearly freed, we bolted in blind, frenzied stampede.
Frolicked, two short weeks, in open fields and sensed,
way up above us, light and blueness of the sky.
Margaret Torr
Jutt
Russet, rotund and stumpy; Welsh hooves steadfast.
Seven coal tubs harnessed: each ten hundredweight.
"Gee up, Jutt" - neigh.
No lug, no haul or drag.
Coaxing, hollering, tempting.
Static, silent, staring.
He's determined, unyielding, never undermined.
Release, unlatch, remove.
Six coal tubs harnessed: each ten hundredweight.
"Gee up, Jutt" - the pony lumbers forth.
Bernadette O'Dwyer
Seven coal tubs harnessed: each ten hundredweight.
"Gee up, Jutt" - neigh.
No lug, no haul or drag.
Coaxing, hollering, tempting.
Static, silent, staring.
He's determined, unyielding, never undermined.
Release, unlatch, remove.
Six coal tubs harnessed: each ten hundredweight.
"Gee up, Jutt" - the pony lumbers forth.
Bernadette O'Dwyer
The Pooley Miners' Tale
Beneath field and forest and Anker’s banks,
a vision of black veins through sandstone and fire-clay
and boys of fourteen, soon men, in cold cages,
race down to hew out a living from the past.
Now part of the family at the friendly “mother” pit,
good pals saving each other’s lives every day,
with snap wrapped in newsprint and apples for ponies
and beer to drown the dust of each finished stint.
Lamps and canaries shield the unseen fear
and while cuts, bruises and aches soon heal,
their backs and knees and lungs bear witness,
to the inheritance of dust, darkness and damp.
There’s no Miner’s Welfare in the village now,
each year there are fewer to remember their tales,
though their bodies are withered, their hair is greyer,
still coal is in their blood, their skin and their words.
The digging below shaped the hollows and pools,
now there’s a sea of silver birch and token oak,
from the motorway we view the pinnacled mound
and picnic in the shadow of the Pooley Miners’ Tale.
Barry Hunt
a vision of black veins through sandstone and fire-clay
and boys of fourteen, soon men, in cold cages,
race down to hew out a living from the past.
Now part of the family at the friendly “mother” pit,
good pals saving each other’s lives every day,
with snap wrapped in newsprint and apples for ponies
and beer to drown the dust of each finished stint.
Lamps and canaries shield the unseen fear
and while cuts, bruises and aches soon heal,
their backs and knees and lungs bear witness,
to the inheritance of dust, darkness and damp.
There’s no Miner’s Welfare in the village now,
each year there are fewer to remember their tales,
though their bodies are withered, their hair is greyer,
still coal is in their blood, their skin and their words.
The digging below shaped the hollows and pools,
now there’s a sea of silver birch and token oak,
from the motorway we view the pinnacled mound
and picnic in the shadow of the Pooley Miners’ Tale.
Barry Hunt
In Their Footsteps
(Located on the side of the visitors' centre)
Houses seem to cough out their men,
flat-capped, hunched-shouldered, bent-bodied,
the old and the middle-aged
wheeze their way to the colliery
chained by generations they journey
towards the whistle and the wheel
to crawl, crawl
on a coal dusted floor.
In their footsteps,
the young lad marches proudly,
boots shined by his mother’s tears
and the threads of her shawl
pinned by jet brooch of widowhood.
At dawn she gives her boy,
tonight he returns a man.
Marjorie Neilson
Houses seem to cough out their men,
flat-capped, hunched-shouldered, bent-bodied,
the old and the middle-aged
wheeze their way to the colliery
chained by generations they journey
towards the whistle and the wheel
to crawl, crawl
on a coal dusted floor.
In their footsteps,
the young lad marches proudly,
boots shined by his mother’s tears
and the threads of her shawl
pinned by jet brooch of widowhood.
At dawn she gives her boy,
tonight he returns a man.
Marjorie Neilson
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Address: The Clerk, The Tithe Barn, Hall Court, Bridge Street, Polesworth, B78 1DT Telephone: 01827 892320 |