Bevin Boy

 

Ernest Bevin got his pound of flesh

as I sucked on my Woodbine,

one of the ‘lucky’ ten percent

who were standing there in line

waiting to be conscripted -

but they decided to assign

me to a living hell

and send me down the mine.

 

So I toiled for years in darkness

and breathed in black diamond dust,

until my back was broken

along with all the trust

that I had for mother England

and when I came out bust

what I’d endured wasn’t even acknowledged

as the Nazi’s were finally crushed.

 

I had sucked more than cigarette smoke

into my burning chest

but that was what they blamed it on

when the black lung came to test

my strength once again.

They said ‘we think it’s best

to just cough and bear it,

so it won’t affect the rest’.

 

You see the mines had become mechanised,

which meant they produced more

and the miners were pretty happy

that they were all getting paid more

and a plague of black lung cases

would have stopped the gears for sure.

I was mortally wounded by the carbon

rather than the carbines of war.

 

I sit now in a faded armchair

sipping hot, sweet tea.

I try not to revisit hell

in nineteen forty three

and the sacrifice I made

so that these buggers can be free.

There were some, other than soldiers,

who fought for their country.