Did we fight hard in the trenches
For a promised Fit For Heroes land
Just to lose hard fought for advances
Do today's workers not understand
Did we suffer violence at Orgreave just
To see our Trades Union rights smashed
Did we stand on the picket lines to see
That great Northern Red Wall crashed
Don't they see democracy tumble
Are they so unaware as our rights fall
Are they so cowed and weak they'll
Quietly stand as we slowly lose it all
Do they know they walk on miners' bones
In their new built shiny shopping parade
Haven't they even been taught about the
How and why of the Jarrow Crusade
My eyes fill with tears as I see
The ever growing ranks
Of wage slave workers being
Reduced to using the Food Banks.
In this brutal Capitalist World
Don't they realise just what they've lost
Has it all just been for nothing that
Our forebears fought and paid the cost
For a while we were narrowing
That wealth and poverty divide
Now I look on with despair as
It grows daily ever more wide
My life is nearly finished
I have fought and run my race
In my old age now I anguish over
The world my grandchildren face.
Day by day I see
Ignorance and Indifference grow
As the children are taught just what
Their rulers deem they need to know.
