Coal Dust In 1933

Coal Dust In 1933 when my dad was 14

Beneath the earth, so dark, so deep,

A boy of fourteen worked the keep.

His hands, once soft, now rough and black,

The coal dust clung — no turning back.

For less than five small shillings’ pay,

He toiled through night and broke the day.

The heat, the grime, the silent fears,

Grew older than his tender years.

A flicker from his lantern’s glow,

Lit shadows in the seams below.

Each swing of pick, each shattered stone,

A childhood stripped, a boy alone.

And when the ground would quake and groan,

A silent prayer he’d cast, unknown.

For every shift, a whispered sigh —

Not all who dug would rise alive.

So here remains the dust, the pain,

The echoes of a lost refrain.

A lad, a life, both dark as coal,

And dreams as blackened as his soul.

Mines have closed, the years passed,

Yet coal dust lingers, dark and vast.

It stains the land, it scars the air,

A silent ghost still standing there.