North and South

There, on the one hand, St. Pancras and Paris;
And there, on the other, Kings Cross:
Gateway to the LNER,
And night mails crossing the border,

And gateway to a world we have lost:
Pit heads and winding gear, tram-roads and collieries,
And curling smoke chimney stacks:
The world of the North,

The canvas telling the truth,
Up there in the Mining Art Gallery,
At Bishop Auckland:

A terrible beauty down there in the dark depths,
And a beautiful harmony up there in the streets
And homes and chapels and clubs and pubs:
The stippled mist-light of the pit village,
The twisted sinews in the eighteen inch seam,
Ears keening with the creak of each pit prop,
The mind tracking the echo of dripping water,
And the whisper of each rock –

There, on the one hand, St. Pancras and Paris;
And there, on the other, Kings Cross:
Gateway to the LNER,
And night mails crossing the border,

And gateway to a world we have lost:
Pit heads and winding gear, tram-roads and collieries,
And curling smoke chimney stacks:
The world of the North,

The canvas telling the truth,
Up there in the Mining Art Gallery,
At Bishop Auckland:

A terrible beauty down there in the dark depths,
And a beautiful harmony up there in the streets
And homes and chapels and clubs and pubs:
The stippled mist-light of the pit village,
The twisted sinews in the eighteen inch seam,
Ears keening with the creak of each pit prop,
The mind tracking the echo of dripping water,
And the whisper of each rock –

The unspoken fear of entombment,
The threat of explosion;

Eyes quick and darting,

The scent of fire damp,
Methane in the air;

And then there, on another broad canvas,
The women in the kitchen, curlers in the hair,
Stoking up the fire, preparing the bait,
Eyes smarting in the washday steam;

Out there,
Pigeons and whippets and ponies in the field,
Spuds for sale with the Christmas wreaths,
Communal allotments and shared apple trees,

The colliery football teams,
Like West Auckland,
Winners of the first World Cup in 1908 –
They beat Juventus and all,
But didn’t get paid while they were away,

But at least their wives and mothers and sisters
Weren’t grieving at the pithead though,
Grieving for their menfolk,
Trapped down there below,
Bodies trapped and wrapped by the black gold,
The black gold that heated the homes and mansions,
The factories, warehouses, palaces, stations and offices,
The black gold
That powered the smiths, and forges and furnaces,
That powered the trains and shipping lines,
The battleships and the dreadnoughts.

But we were now gazing at a sunset smelted sky
Flaming out over drystone walls and snow capped hills,
And the tumps of old lead mines,

While Christmas lights blazed in the villages,
While pub windows glowed orange in the twilight,
Beyond the nail parlours and tattoo shops,

While we tracked the paths of Charles Dickens,
Wackford Squeers, Smike and Nicholas Nickleby,
Through Barnard Castle and thence to Durham,
Where men and women swopped tales of football,
And where three pints cost six quid,
And where we were allowed to serve ourselves,
While coal, not dole, fires roared in Victorian grates,

Until we went to the People’s Bookshop,
Where books to inspire and educate and value
All line the shelves,
Not priced, but there for a donation,
What you could afford –

And where we talked of a divided ruling class,
And where we talked of victory,
Victory for the working class,
Victory at the next election,
As the sun once more sank in the west;

And so to the Pitmen’s Parliament,
Where a vast audience gathered
Beneath the banners of past struggles and victories,
For a class struggle film of Dennis Skinner,
And talk not just of class,
But of race and gender, too,
Where the ghosts of Socialism past,
Embraced those of Socialism Present and Future,
A world not so much as lost,
As a paradise waiting to be regained,
A union of North and South:

‘Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.’

‘In the bar room, in the bar room,
That’s where we congregate,
To drill the holes, shovel coals and shovel up the slate,
And for to do a job of work,
Oh, I am never late,
That’s provided we can do it in the bar room.’