“But the sun itself, however beneficent, generally, was less kind to Coketown than hard frost...'
― Charles Dickens, 'Hard Times'
Dream of me
iron masters, sheet metal workers, the black country,
where everlasting everything was sooty-black
streets, faces, factories, homes
black to the marrow
black to the bone
Fact, fact, fact.
The sky is moody, glowering, like the disease-
stripped trees, the back-to-black houses;
animals cough up black sputum
men too, as they pay their respects
at the cemetery where names and dates
can only be seen for a year or two.
It is like all the people are constantly in mourning,
black coal, black coke
Choke, choke, choke.
The earth is black, loamy, you can dig it up,
Metal is everywhere, hitting spades as men dig allotments.
You cannot cut it
You can burn it slow
As blachsmiths burn black metal with red fire
the steely material is lazy, concise
melted into moulds: poured into black earth, black mountain
slag heaps drill within it
contracts immersed in it: ink, ink, ink .
Tap the gaffer's jaw, drill your fist in raw:
pour molten lead over his bald well-manicured head
tell him to look at the grass, look at the sun, look at the children.
Ha! he can't: smog, smog, smog blankets a multitude of sins.
Here, where thete is no glaze of sunlight,
the sun is only present on vases in the polished parlours,
no light paints no black scene green.
Exactly remembered Keith. I recall taking the train into Manchester and it was as if we passed through one continuous black grimy tunnel - it was, of course, the pre-sand blasted mills, warehouses and factories leaning over us!
Following the war years most of urban Britain became stained with a blackness which covered most buildings. At one point, where I lived, notices appeared on lamp posts heralding the dawn of the smokeless zone. Coke would replace coal we were told. I can recall public buildings in town of a neo classical architecture, libraries, the town hall, the market hall and the Courts were black, so much so I thought that it was their natural colour. When sand blasting took place some years later these buildings revealed a new and different exterior, a honey coloured sandstone which astonished us all. God only knows, before that time, the effect which pollution had on people's health. A poem which catches the end of the industrial revolution so dependent on coal. Canals with barges carried it , homes burned it and we all breathed it.
Thank you for this reminder so eloquently put.
Keith
Dream of me iron masters, sheet metal workers, the black country, where everlasting everything was sooty-black streets, faces, factories, homes black to the marrow black to the bone Fact, fact, fact. The sky is moody, glowering, like the disease- stripped trees, the back-to-black houses; animals cough up black sputum men too, as they pay their respects at the cemetery where names and dates can only be seen for a year or two. It is like all the people are constantly in mourning, black coal, black coke Choke, choke, choke. The earth is black, loamy, you can dig it up, Metal is everywhere, hitting spades as men dig allotments. You cannot cut it You can burn it slow As blachsmiths burn black metal with red fire the steely material is lazy, concise melted into moulds: poured into black earth, black mountain slag heaps drill within it contracts immersed in it: ink, ink, ink . Tap the gaffer's jaw, drill your fist in raw: pour molten lead over his bald well-manicured head tell him to look at the grass, look at the sun, look at the children. Ha! he can't: smog, smog, smog blankets a multitude of sins. Here, where thete is no glaze of sunlight, the sun is only present on vases in the polished parlours, no light paints no black scene green.
John Marks
Mon 22nd Nov 2021 17:16
Exactly remembered Keith. I recall taking the train into Manchester and it was as if we passed through one continuous black grimy tunnel - it was, of course, the pre-sand blasted mills, warehouses and factories leaning over us!