POEMS

Your Farewell from Crynant

Farewell dear comrade, farewell

As you depart for native land

Where you’ll entertain your friends with many tales

Of the time you spent way down in Wales

You came here to help in the battle for coal

Changed from a city boy to a human mole

But I think you never did regret

The changes, because of the friends you met

Friends that will miss you for years to come

For their friendship and confidence you had won

In work, and on the sporting field

Your absence, all brynawell will miss

And most of all we’ll miss you on the corner

Where we all spent many a happy hour

You are leaving now the hardship of the colliery

To your old job in the refrigerator factory

And when you are snug and warm in your new abode

Think of your comrades down in Cefn Coed

Tell the cockneys as they sit around the fire

Of the courage and sacrifices of the miner

So, as I hope that you succeed to reach the top

Let your memory go back to the nights in shanty shop

And if you meet a Welshman, shake him by the hand

In friendship for your stay in that little land.

Skid Bace (November 1947)

(Thanks to John Breeden for this poem which was given to him from a friend when he was demobbed in 1947)