Must admit, it is a rather powerful song. There again, anything Ewan McColl wrote was about as strong as his opinions...

I do feel I have to take issue with Dennis the Elder about Thatcher doing us a favour. I was a miner and to this day feel bitter. Not bitter about whether we need or want coal versus any other energy but bitter about her "there is no such thing as society" and then decimating our communities.

I drive as part of my work, I take trains and I spend a lot of time at our London office. We lost a colleague in the London bombings, I have lost friends and family on the roads and once on the rail. I never lost anybody I personally knew down the pit. (I do originate from Creswell mind, so if I were around in 1950, I may be saying something different...

I do like the song but never sung it when I worked down the pit. I then learned it and sang it often in clubs. The my eldest left school and went down the pit... So I stopped. He left hte pit earlier this year. Suppose I might just get around to relearning it...