Ok Ray.

I dug this out. It is a bit of a personal song as it is about me in every sense of the word.

I think I sang it to the tune that Christie Moore sings Little Musgrave.

Time to move on

As I walked down to the club, to have a pint and cheer,
Live Aid now was saving the world, it was music to my ear.
But I looked round and others looked away, a bad taste in my beer,
They couldn't remember if I worked, if was there or here.

The world is changing once again, we must now move on,
Traditions and skills of the working man, vanishing one by one.

I started working down the pit, an apprentice at the mine,
It was the summer of '79, I felt I was doing fine.
My mum I knew she wasn't happy, towing the community line,
No lad of hers before had gone, she felt I was doing time.

The world is changing once again, we must now move on,
Traditions and skills of the working man, vanishing one by one.

But I was happy, I had money, skills and loads of mates,
A pint in the club but just have one, when I was working lates.
A job, security and a pension come to he that waits,
Bide your time, do your job, turn up at the colliery gates.

The world is changing once again, we must now move on,
Traditions and skills of the working man, vanishing one by one.

I married young because I could, the future was my own,
Earning the money to buy a house, no need for a further loan.
A baby bouncing on my knee, whatever could go wrong?
Scargill said out brothers out, this strike will be hard and long.

The world is changing once again, we must now move on,
Traditions and skills of the working man, vanishing one by one.

A Yorkshire pit in Nottinghamshire, who didn't vote to strike,
The lads came down from Rotherham, to persuade us with all their might.
Stuck in the middle, what could I do? To keep my baby fed?
Time to move on, change my life, fed up of being red.

The world is changing once again, we must now move on,
Traditions and skills of the working man, vanishing one by one.

Do my mates remember me, laughing and singing a song?
Or do they think that I went back, for what they thought was wrong.
Easier still to shut me out, as if I didn't exist,
But all I know as I moved on, my first life will be missed.

The world is changing once again, we must now move on,
Traditions and skills of the working man, vanishing one by one.

 I Mather 1985