Im reliably informed that posts from pages such as this only reach about 8% of the people who are subscribed to them, so I make no bones about posting this poem again hoping it reaches a different 8% this time. Fee free to share if you like it. Coming up next Saturday..... NEVER FORGET Written for the Orgreave Mass Picnic & Festival at Catcliffe Recreation Ground on June 14, 2014, commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the Battle of Orgreave during the Miners’ Strike. I am so honoured to be compering the main stage. I remember my stepfather moaning In the first strike in ’72 ‘Miners holding the country to ransom…..’ I was fourteen. I thought about you. You worked underground, often in danger. Hewed the coal we depended upon. He earned more checking tax forms in Brighton. I knew then just whose side I was on. I remember Kent pickets at Shoreham When our port bosses shipped in scab coal. By the time they were back twelve years later A new anger burned deep in my soul. You’d won once, but this time would be harder For your foe was no bumbling Heath. It was Thatcher, revenge her agenda. A class warrior, armed to the teeth. You were miners on strike for your future: For your pits, your communities, ways. We were punks, poets, anarchists, lesbians. Theatre groups, Rastafarians, gays. A small part of your supporting army Standing firm and determined to win. And Thatcher lumped us all together: Punk or miner. The enemy within. As a poet, I crisscrossed the country From Durham to Yorkshire to Kent Doing benefits, arguing, learning. Raising funds that were so quickly spent. Played my tiny part in that great battle That you fought so hard right to the last. A battle so proudly remembered Now that thirty long years have gone past. I remember those pictures from Orgreave. Police faces contorted with hate. The communities brutalized, shattered By the raw, naked power of the state. If it took guns and tanks to defeat you She’d have used guns and tanks on you too. The veneer of democracy shattered. The hired thugs of the privileged few. After Orgreave came Wapping, then Hillsborough. With the press and police on her side Thatcher smiled as the printers were beaten And those ninety six football fans died. She had a quite brazen agenda Summed up well when she famously said That there’s not such a thing as society. Don’t blame us for being pleased that she’s dead. Now the bankers destroy the economy And the jobless and sick get the blame And our once mighty, proud labour movement Is shackled, and timid, and tame But this poet will always remember All the brave men and women I met We will carry on fighting for justice - And we’ll never, no never, forget.
Posted on: Sun, 08 Jun 2014 09:39:07 +0000