It's Welsh, and sung to the tune of Calon Lan, a big hit in Welsh Victorian times. The chorus "Keep your your hands upon your wages and your eyes upon the Scale" is a direct reference to The Sliding Scale, which the South Wales Miners' Federation struck in protest to overcome. Over the years, the South Wales miners emigrated far and wide to America, from Scranton PA to California, and they carried the protest song The Miner's Life with them. The Folk Process mixed The Miner's Life up with the American Gospel song Life Is Like A Mountain Railroad, and once again it crossed the Atlantic, where Durham colliers sung their version from learned from American miners.

To me, it doesn't matter in the slightest if we - or you - are singing the "correct" song. That's the Folk Process for you. To the Durham miners, their song is every bit as valid as our Miner's Life -perhaps more so, as they have carried on the tradition. That's a thought: on Wednesday at Llantrisant Folk Club, I'm going to sing the Welsh version of A Miner's Life (which I'm proud to say I collected) and re-establish it again!

Reference: A Miner's Life, from my 1977 solo album Gowerton Fair (SFA074).

Incidentally, I DID write When The Coal Comes From The Rhondda, from a fragment I gleaned from four South Wales miners who were having a drink and a sing-song on a ferry to Ireland. This ubiquitous song, known as an anthem to Welsh choirs everywhere, is very incomplete - in fact, it peters out after only one verse. Our Calennig version is the earliest and the most complete - and I took the liberty of changing the chorus, too!

Mick Tems