Hewin’ for the Ore

Graeme Miles 1972?

 

The Wilson Family: The Wilsons at The Bridge Folk Club – Hewin’ For The Ore (Graeme Miles, arr The Wilson Family)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9Mx_FQEBok

Graeme Wade was a ironstone miner, I’ll have youse all to know He worked the old shaft iron mines, so many years ago And he used to tell us stories about his life and times When he was hewin’ for the ore down in the Cleveland Mines Chorus: Hewin’ for the ore, hewin’ for the ore Hewin’ for the rusty ore Fifty years or more They’d talk about conditions and about the rates of pay How sometimes they were earning less than four and tenner a day But ask for better conditions were like askin’ for the moon For the miner paid the piper but the owner called the tune Sometimes the ore was silver-gray and sometimes rusty brown Sometimes he’d hewin’ on his back, more often upside-down But mostly he was all cramped up in a couple of feet of space With a jagged wall of rock and ore six inches from his face He talked about the beddy seams as soft as any sand You didn’t need a pick at all, it just crumbled in your hands But mostly it was granite-hard and you’d pound and pound away And the only progress that you made was a couple of yards a day Now many years have passed and gone since he put his picks away For Graeme Wade ’tis eighty-six but he’s still got plenty to say About the days he hewed for ore and about his life and times When for almost fifty years or so he worked the Cleveland Mines