Mardy

    * (Dave Rogers)

         Oh Mardy oh Mardy
         The last pit in the Rhondda

      There's mist down in the valley and the snow lies on the hill
      No men walk through the empty street the pit lies quiet and still
      There's a keen wind down the valley road that bites into your skin
      But the people of the Rhondda will keep fighting till they win

      When I was small I used to sit down by the fireside
      To hear the tales of struggle that would fill my heart with pride
      I heard of the evictions back in nineteen thirty-two
      When the people of the Rhondda wouldn't let the bailiffs through

      They told me of a valley that we'll never see again
      When the coalmines found employment for forty thousand men
      The anthracite was plentiful down in the Rhondda seam
      But the owners wanted closures and economizing schemes

      My father had to fight to earn a living from the mine
      If he was here today he'd join us on the picket line
      His lungs were full of Mardy dust for that's the price of coal
      The dust it took his body but the union gained his soul

      The women of the Rhondda are out on the picket line
      To stop the Coal Board's closure plan and save the Mardy mine
      Fighting for our children and the town where we belong
      You'll hear their voices singing, We are women we are strong

      I marched with men from Corkinwood (?) and with the Kirsley wives
      I've joined the Durham miners like us fighting for their lives
      I've stood with lads from Nottingham down on that Orgreave field
      And faced the dogs and truncheons and the bloody riot shields

      Repeat 1

      (as sung by Dave Burns)

      Orgreave - place of a bloody clash between police and miners in Yorkshire during the 1984/85 coalfields strike