Very interesting! I collected Down In The Rhondda Coalmine from two retired coal-miners James Hedley (Aberavon) and Tom Evans (Bridgend), South Wales. The Rhondda Valleys (the Rhondda Fawr and the Rhondda Fach) provided work for 100 steam coal pits - Perhaps a Rhondda miner, a music-hall fan, picked up on J. B. Geoghegan's work and localised the song. Perhaps James Hedley and Tom Evans heard a song at a "Smoking Concert", the equivalent of a music hall show, but the mystery is that became lodged in two miners' minds.   


DOWN IN THE RHONDDA COAL-MINE

1. I am a Rhondda collier, as a jovial as can be
But if the trade is very bad, it means a lot to me,
And if I stumble with my tongue, I've one excuse to say,
For it's not the collier's heart that's wrong, it's the head that goes astray.

CHORUS
Down in the Rhondda coal-mine, underneath the ground,
Where a gleam of sunshine is never to be found,
Digging dirty diamonds all the season through,
And I (if??) you buy meself a drink, I'll leave it up to you.

2. How bravely for us collier lads, we toil beneath the ground,
Digging for the Rhondda coal as days and nights go round,
And anxiously our families wait, how often it is said,
You never know by nightfall how many will be dead.

CHORUS

3. How little do the rich men care, who sit at home secure,
What dangers all the colliers dare and hardships we endure.
The very fires they have at home to cheer them and their wives
Perhaps were kindled at the cost of Rhondda colliers' lives.

CHORUS


Mick Tems