Graeme Miles 1972?
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