Markham 1973

Markham 1973

Photo courtesy of dun.can on Flickr, taken in 1993

My poem is dedicated to the men who died and were seriously injured in the disaster at Markham Colliery in Derbyshire on July 30th 1973. They included Joseph (Joe) Birkin, who lived in our village and whose twin daughters Lynn and Sadie were regulars at our chapel and were only 21 when their dad died.

All was quiet in the village
It was an English summer's day
Not hot, not cold, might rain, might not
Children at their play

The six week holidays had come
No teachers to obey
Free to roam the streets and fields
On that English summer's day

The rain had freshened all the scents
Flowers, grass and soil
But underneath the land so green
Men were at their toil

As the birds sang in the dawn
A braking rod gave way
Twenty nine colliers dropped down the shaft
On that English summer's day

No larks were singing in that mine
No nightingale nor jay
Just screams and blood and death and fear
On that English summer's day

The breeze was wafting wheat and grass
Last chance to cut the hay
Eighteen brave men went in that pit
And never came away

Forty years and more have passed
It seems like yesterday
When families' lives were torn apart
On that English summer's day


The inquiry, at which my dad was a witness as part of the investigating team, produced its report that lays out the details of the incident and its cause in cold, legal and exact language. Of course, this is to be expected but nonetheless it makes interesting reading for an engineer. As always in disasters, it seems, there were mistakes that could have prevented or mitigated against the terrible injuries and deaths that resulted from the fatigue failure of a metal braking rod. As it turns out, almost my entire working life had been spent with a company whose core products and skills are based on software that helps to predict and prevent fatigue of components used in a range of engineering applications. It was never intentional on my part to relate my work to this incident and I only discovered the full extent of the problem that led to the failure when I recently found the report online and read it in detail. However, my dad did find the advert for the job and pointed me to it - was he aware of what the company did? I'll never know now as he has gone and I never kept a copy of the advert.

Some of the things he told me about the accident were truly terrible and are quite distressing. I don't know how the families coped with it.

Finally in 2013 a memorial was installed on the Markham Vale industrial estate that now sits on the site of the former colliery. It commemorates those who died in this disaster and in two prior disasters, particularly an explosion in 1938 that killed 79 and will stretch across the fields up to the village of Duckmanton, which was particularly devastated by the 1938 disaster, with a figure for each miner killed.



The Dead


Birkin, Joseph , aged 60, Face Worker
Briggs, Clarence , aged 52, Deputy
Brocklehurst, Joseph William , aged 58, Deputy
Brooks, Clifford , aged 58, Deputy
Chapman, Henry , aged 48, Deputy
Cooper, Gordon Richard , aged 30, Development Worker
Eyre, George, aged 60, Gearhead Attendant
Kilroy, Michael , aged 53, Development Worker
Kiminsky, Jan , aged 58, Development Worker
Plewinsky, Lucjam , aged 59, General Worker
Reddish, Frederick , aged 53, Development Worker
Rodgers, Wilfred , aged 59, Face Worker
Sissons, Charles Leonard, aged 43, Road Repairer
Stone, Frank , aged 53, Road Repairer
Turner, Charles Richard , aged 60, Deputy
Tyler, Albert , aged 64, Back Repairer
White, Alfred , aged 57, Deputy
Yates, William, aged 62, Development Worker

The Injured
Brothwell, Dennis; aged 44, Development Worker
Cowley,Frank; aged 43, Development Worker
Cowley, Malcolm Joseph; aged 29, Development Worker
Maxwell, John; aged 35, Reserve Face Worker (injured in the rescue attempt)
Reddish, James; aged 25, Development Worker
Richardson, Graham; aged 34, Heavy Supplies Worker
Stone, George Denis; aged 41, Overman
Taylor, Harry; aged 47, Development Worker
Thornley, Terence; aged 18, Face Trainee
Vaughan, Terence Graham; aged 38 Development Worker
Watson, William Henry; aged 47, Face Worker
Wrobels, Richard; aged 44, Face Worker

We were just one of many families who were deeply affected by that awful tragedy and the memories of that day and the weeks that followed are still painful. “My sister and I were 21 years old in 1973 so were of an age to clearly recall everything that happened

Read more at: http://www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk/news/markham-pit-the-day-a-community-fell-silent-1-5891510

Men were lying tangled together with shattered legs. I remember one young lad screaming in pain. He was given morphine but was still screaming

Read more at: http://www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk/news/markham-pit-memorial-for-miners-who-lost-their-lives-with-slideshow-1-5914370

“Men were lying tangled together with shattered legs. I remember one young lad screaming in pain. He was given morphine but was still screaming.”

Read more at: http://www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk/news/markham-pit-memorial-for-miners-who-lost-their-lives-with-slideshow-1-5914370

The Dog in the Hi-Viz

Written for my mate Dave Elsom's birthday - hope you like it!

This may have happened...

The Dog in the Hi-Viz

The small dog gaily trips along
He wears a tiny Hi-Viz coat
on a daily perambulation where
paths are marked and learned by rote

His Hi-Viz marks him out as special
It makes him bigger than he is
"You can't stop there!", "You can't do that!"
Authority is quite rightly his

He stops for a tiny but perfect poo
Stares at it with admiring eyes
that look accusingly at the man
"Clean it up!" the glance implies

The owner bends with plastic bag
as the officious canine checks his work
The stool is scooped, he seems content
that his so-called master didn't shirk

The lamppost is examined too
Sniff of wet and sensitive nose
Then delicately cocks his leg
in a confident yet careful pose

The world is safer than it was before
the tiny pooch checked out his route
wearing his tiny Hi-Viz vest;
Job done - and he looked so very cute

(c) Tim Fellows 2017

Back to Blighty

Back to Blighty

Descending through the steely clouds
Bumpy vapour shakes the plane
As we emerge from the heavy shroud
Green summer land in slanting rain
From Central Europe's sunny lands
Vienna, Munich, Buda, Pest
From the Costa's fiery sands
Exotic East, exciting West
Back to Blighty

Onto the drizzle sodden runway
Doors swing open, cold air blasts
From the steps the hurried dash away
The arrivals queue is not so fast.
Europeans this way for now
For how long will we be as one?
We'll separate ourselves, the proud
and glorious sons of Albion
Back in Blighty

Pasty skins burnt in far off nations
Our favoured holiday destinations
Drunken, arrogant, gross and rude
Where we got our proper British food
Outside the traffic coughs and strains
Empty buses, crowded trains
The overloaded network groans
And everybody bloody moans
In modern Blighty

No contact from unsmiling eye
The mood on par with leaden sky
Stiff upper lip in force again
Certainty washed down the drain
Young-old, left-right, town and city
One land is torn in parts somehow
Devoid of hope, devoid of pity
Class division seems so simple now
In beleaguered Blighty

Isolation, desolation
Truly a divided nation
Braying politicians preen
Sombre news barks from our screens
We wrap ourselves in our Union flag
Yet unity comes with its own price tag
Remembering glorious bygone days
The Empire pillaged when we ruled the waves
We protest, scream into the void
Credibility destroyed
In Dear Old Blighty

The world we knew it is no more
Empires have risen and fallen before
In revolution, bloody war
Rotten to their bloated core
We have no clue what we stand for
What now, dear Blighty?

(c) Tim Fellows 2017

3G Killed the Pub Quiz

3G Killed the Pub Quiz

Whispered answers, furtive looks
at the new team near the bar
"Win a gallon!" the landlord shouts
"Not much chance" says Bob, "so far"

"What is the national gemstone
of Australia?" (question ten)
"It's opal" whispers Julie
 It's a mystery to the men

But what's that commotion over there
Some students falling out
With regulars sitting nearby
We begin to hear them shout

"You cheating little bastard!"
"You're asking for a clout"
More words exchanged, a drink is launched
the landlord chucks them out

"He's using a fancy phone" says Bob
"on that internet"
"How does that work", says Jimmy
"Do you have to send a text?"

Thus began the gradual end
of our twice-weekly fun
We'd rarely won, that's not the point,
a new age had begun

Where the only place a pub quiz works
Is at that moorland pub
where there's bugger all reception
and they do some lovely grub

(c) Tim Fellows 2017