Hi Guest,

Not sure if you will be interested in this. It is not in the usual hardship and disaster theme of many mining songs, but it is still a mining song.

In 1936 Oswald Mosley's blackshirts arrived uninvited in Tonypandy and started setting up hustings to promote their politics. The miners and women of Tonypandy ensured that they didn't get to speak a word. Only the locals were arrested by the police, and a half dozen or so got gaoled. It was the final straw for some in terms of signing up to the International Brigade, indeed one of those arrested, Harry Dodson, is said to have been so incensed that when he left gaol his first question was "Which way is Spain". Anyways this is my take on it:


   WHEN THE MINERS FOUGHT FOR SPAIN

   Em      C               G                  D
No Paseran the cry went up from Rhondda through to Spain
Em       C             D                   Em
And the men who said they shall not pass won't pass this way again

    G               C                D             G         
They poured out from the mine and marched to Tonypandy square
Word had reached the pithead Moseley's blackshirts gathered there
Lies are better silenced if they're stopped before they start
The men of Pandy town engraved this maxim on their hearts

CHORUS- Break G C Em D Em

The Peelers came in four abreast, there to end the affray
Shook hands with the fascist thugs and sent them on their way
Thirty six arrests were made but no blackshirts God forbid
When Harry Dobsen left his cell he asked "Which way to Madrid"?

Five hundred men from British soil died in a foreign land
On beaches filled with tourists now they drew their line in the sand
Let us not forget these men their rifles at their sides
Who stood in mountain trenches, and turned the fascist tide

CHORUS