PITMEN'S UNION
(Frankie Armstrong)

'Twas on the fifth of April, the days being long and clear;
how bright did shine the sun and how fresh did blow the air.
I overheard a fair pretty maid, so sweetly she did sing,
as she sat under a little brown cow, a-milking by the stream.

A young man stepped up to her and he bended on his knee,
he asked her kindly for a drink to help him on his way.
"Some milk to you I'll freely give, young fella," she replies,
"But tell me first do you belong to the bold brave un-i-on boys?"

"Can't you see that I'm a collier, for I'm black as any sloe,
and all this night I've picked and hewed in the darkness herebelow."
"Oh, I do love the collier lads, they are me dear delight,
for me father was a pitman all the days of his life!"

"'Tis steam upon the ocean, and 'tis steam upon the land,
and where would we be now at all, without our collier men?
Down in the dark they toil to bring the coal above the ground,
and we know they're working day and night with dangers all around."

She wrapped her arms around him like a violet 'round a vine,
cryin' "You are a bonny collier lad that's won this heart of mine!
And if that you do treat me well and be me dear sweetheart,
I'll crown you in glory and forever take your part."

So come, all you pretty fair maids, wherever that you may be,
do not despise the collier lads in any one degree!
For if that you do treat them well, they'll do the same to thee,
Oh, there's no one in the whole wide world but a bonny pit lad for me.

===

Memorized in 1978 from Frankie Armstrong's "Songs and Ballads" -- I have several of the songs by memory, including Hull Trawlers, Little Duke Athol's* Nurse, Little Musgrave, and Collier Lass, but I do not have *all* of jack the Lad because I disliked the topic (ewww, vomit?!), being a teenager at the time. Last verse is easy, though: "It wasn't methadone killed Jack the lad you know, just the obstruction that made him choke// It's not a hard drug like proper heroin, it was just accident, it was just accident, it was just accident he died, poor bloke."

Enjoy, sorry to take so long to find your page, here. Hope someone sometime finds it useful :-)

-- Heather P in Bremerton, WA (for now)

*I like the older version of the name, goes better with the raw sound of that tune.