Lyr Req/Add: Maerdy, the Last Pit in the Rhondda

Subject: Lyr Req: Maerdy
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 08:04 PM

Looking for the lyrics and tune to Maerdy 'The last pit in the Rhondda'....Any help would be appreciated

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Maerdy
From: Peace
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 08:05 PM

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

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Maerdy
From: Peace
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 08:07 PM

That is from this site

mysongbook.de/msb/songs/m/mardy.html

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Maerdy
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 04:28 AM

brucie, the name in the last verse is Cortonwood, a coking plant.

eric

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Maerdy
From: Snuffy
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 07:28 AM

And Keresley is the village next to Coventry Colliery, Warwickshire

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Maerdy
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 07:45 AM

Oi!!!! you watch where you sing that now..... Dave King has squatters rights on that one!! At least in our part of Wales (which includes most of outer Wales - across to Suffolk and up to Scotland, and certainly down to The Isle of Wight and Cornwall).
Until you've heard Dave sing this you haven't heard it sung proper!

Andy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Maerdy
From: My guru always said
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 08:17 AM

Hear, Hear Andy! But surely this fabulous song should be sung, and heard?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Maerdy
From: Snuffy
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 09:55 AM

Andy, Dave gets everywhere with that song - I've got a recording of him singing Maerdy at Saltburn last year!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Maerdy
From: vectis
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 11:52 AM

Dave gave me the words a couple of years ago and hereby claim squatters rights to the song in the bits of the world Dave doesn't get to.
I think it should be spelled Maerdy not mardy.
Andy is right Dave sings the definitive version of this song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Maerdy
From: Peace
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 01:51 PM

Refreshing in hopes the GUEST sees it. I have never heard the song at all. From the talk above it must be beautiful. Perhaps someday . . . .

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Maerdy
From: Taffy2
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 08:57 PM

Wouldn't mind getting hold of that song. (HINT!)
When I was a kid - back in the 20s and 30s - my dad (who was a coal-miner) would often take us for a walk (make that a tough climb) over the mountains from my home in Aberdare to visit a friend in Maerdy in the Rhondda valley, so I can confirm that the correct spelling is indeed (to goodness!) MAERDY, not Mardy. Though we always pronounced it as Mardy, so that's probably how it became misspelled.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Maerdy
From: Gray D
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 09:40 PM

It's all very well getting all dewy eyed about the cynical, politically motivated, destruction of a mass employment industry, but what about the number of people who WON'T die of pneumoconeosis (cf. Kate Rusby's "My Young Man"), roof collapse, spoil heap slippage or just manamgement carelessness, and those who won't have bits of their body ripped off by machinery?

The traditional mining industry has died in the UK? GOOD! It treated its workforce like shit.

Sing no songs of regret, rather reflect the evidence of a French documentary team who came to the Welsh valleys on the 20th. anniversary of the miners' strike who were told that the crime was NOT closing the mines but making no real attempt to put anything in its place.

Fuck mining . . . mining kills good people.

Gray D

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Maerdy
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 04:29 AM

I have a feeling that it is not the closing of the mines as such that is the sad part but the destruction of the communities that went with it. People working in such conditions are brought close together by the very danger and adversity they face everyt day, and not just the miners but their wives and families too. I am only a newcomer to Wales (22 years ) but I have seen the change from small friendy communities to commuter dormitories. The people are the same but the community spirit was cruelly ripped apart with the decimation of the coal industry. T%hank God it's gone but, as the previous post said, what a tragedy it wasn't replaced by suitable industry.

Oh, and with my slightly tongue in cheek earlier post, I certainly wasn't implying that no-one else should sing this song; all songs should be sung. Rather though that Dave is a hell of an act to follow. Andy

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Maerdy
From: My guru always said
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 06:38 AM

You're right about that Andy!! And too that it's the sense of community that's been lost. Wonderful song, wherever Dave gets to sing it *grin*

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Maerdy
From: GUEST,old girl
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 11:31 AM

Dave is embarrassed, he loves this song but it is'ent his song anyone can sing it, but thanks Andy & hils for the compliments great praise from two accomplished performers,
Rose

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Maerdy
From: vectis
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 07:21 PM

I was lucky enough to meet Dave Rogers, the bloke wot wrote Maerdy last summer. He's still writing some very powerful songs.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Maerdy, the Last Pit in the Rhondda
From: BanjoRay
Date: 16 Dec 10 - 07:20 PM

Cortonwood was a mine, not a coking plant, near Wath-upon-Dearne.

The anthracite was plentiful down in the Rhondda seam

Anyone who worked in a South Wales pit would know that there's NO anthracite in the Rhondda. Anthracite is a high carbon almost smokeless coal from the Neath and Gwendraith valleys, much further west.
The Rhondda produced steam coal, as used in locomotives.
Ray (arch nitpicker and ex-NCB scientist)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Maerdy, the Last Pit in the Rhondda
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Apr 12 - 02:49 PM

Hi!
I am 28 and I listened to this album with my dad who worked in the pit when I was a little girl. I have been trying to find this album for my dad as the original copy was lost.
Does anyone please please please know where I can buy it from. If you have any info please email me at
[e-mail]

thank you so much

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Maerdy, the Last Pit in the Rhondda
From: richd
Date: 28 Apr 12 - 06:35 PM

Old point: By the time Maerdy closed it might well have been mining anthracite or semi anthracite. Tower was mining way way west by the time it shut, and Mardy was linked with Tower I recall. Maerdy to Aberpergwm direct would be 5 or 6 miles, and 'Pergwm was anthracite.