The Miner (for my grandad Ted)

This poem is written in memory of my grandad William Edward "Ted" Fellows (1913-1978). I had the honour of reading it for the first time at the National Coal Mining Museum's commemoration event on 2nd December 2017.

Commemorative disc

"Lives lived, lives lost"

Reading of the poem

Reading the disc inscriptions

The Miner

He used to take the boy for walks
along rutted lanes;
aside thick-grassed fields.
On baked mud tracks
dappled with life and colour
yet close to the grey
man-made towers
and black hills where,
in his daily work,
he would ride the cage
into the darkest hell.
Birds identified
by their song and shape;
He knew the ground
on which we walked
and below which he toiled.
He smiles, in his head the
words and music of Handel.
His hands, holding the boy,
skilled on the trombone,
tending his greenhouse plants,
conducting the choir,
working the coal.

In giving lives and bodies

to the cause - the nation's energy

was safe in the miners' hands

yet they were so much more.

Fathers, brothers, sons, granddads -

Poets, singers, artists, craftsmen;

Hands and hearts

held in perfect time.

(c) Tim Fellows 2017