CAMBRIAN COLLIERY DISASTER by BILL SABLES

I wrote this song in May 1965 just after hearing the news of a mine explosion in the Cambrian Colliery, at Tonypandy in South Wales, where thirty one miners were killed.

On the seventeenth day in the month of May in the year of sixty five
An explosion happened in the pit and miners lost their lives
Eight hundred and fifty feet down below these miners were found dead
While trying to earn an honest wage to keep their families fed

Two miles from the bottom of the shaft they worked behind the plough
They little thought that they would be amongst the angels now
But in that two foot eight inch seam a death trap 'twas no doubt
The rescue men risked life and limb to get the bodies out

There were eighty men in the pit that day, thirty six were safe and free
Thirteen were injured, thirty one killed in the explosion at Tonypandy
A blast of air then dust and smoke, the explosion shook the pit head
The manager and his assistant they were counted with the dead

No one knows what caused it, electricity or gas
We only know it happened and these miners lives did pass
We never shall forget it, this disastrous pit in Wales
Along the Rhonda Valley near the town of Clydach Vale

The queen, she sent her sympathy to sweethearts and to wives
But this could not atone for the precious colliers lives
So think of these bold miners as in their graves they lie
And pray no more explosions will cause other men to die