I am talking with this young man
But I see his grandsire there
The way he lounges so completely
In my old arm chair
And he is talking to me animatedly
Bur I am not sure I hear
For I am seeing me and his grandsire
In a long passed year
And we are both standing on the pickets
Giving our whole
Fighting class warfare that bitter year
That destroyed King Coal
And we stood there in the soup kitchens
Run by the strikers wives
And we stood on the pickets trying to stop
Destruction of their working lives
The battle that we lost
The price the workers paid
That allowed all the changes
Our government then made
That converted our island into
A cheap labour place
Sacrifices that allowed the creation
Of a solid economic base
That made the country prosperous
For some so very nice
But not for those workers
Who lost and paid the price
I hear his grandsires voice
Over all those years
As we left the broken picket lines
Both so close to tears
I see those pit villages now
Still scenes of economic blight
There may have been a victory
But that doesn't make it more right
He has stopped speaking now
And I realise
He is looking at me closely
With concern in his eyes
And I pull myself together
And I force myself to smile
And we chat away with pleasure
For just a little while
Then I shake his hand
And I see him walk away
The image of his grandsire
From our revolutionary days