Old King Coal
My generation of boys saw steam as a hobby:
We grew up with Ian Allan loco-spotting books,
Gazing in wonder at the wreathes of smoke
Curling through countryside and town,
Enjoying November fogs:
‘No sun, no moon,
No hint of noon …’
And we took a certain boyish pride
In British know-how, ingenuity,
Innovation and practicality:
We were the first country to industrialise!
‘The Workshop of the World’!
Weren’t we lucky to have all those advantages,
And benefits of nature, such as coal?
Obviously, the advent of feminist history,
And more recent decolonising of history
Have critiqued this Old School history,
But the climate crisis now creates
A new urgent and drastic review of the
Old School of Old King Coal.
You can still smell the consequences today
(And I’m not talking preserved steam lines here),
You can taste it in the air,
Hear it in the thunder clouds,
Touch it in the dry river beds
And flash flood fields and valleys
And for those with eyes to see it,
In what some term ‘The Age of the Anthropocene’.
And one small gesture we can make
Is to make more journeys by train rather than car,
And walk or bike or use the bus to get to the station,
And for generations younger than mine:
Why not think about a career on the railways?
Those male train drivers are getting older:
It would be good to see more diversity in more ways than one
In the cab, driving the trains to a greener future …