The Snap Tins

This is a poem by Black Horse - Wakefield Word Group member Angie de Courcy Bower, inspired by mining objects in our collection.

Content warning: this poem references mining accidents.

The snap tins measured time.

Before night shift, as I was going to bed,
squatting on the table edge,
casting fear to little head,
a sort of gloom:
until the morning told of coming through.
From down the shaft,
where they would dream of flying things, and light:
the opposite of being below packed tight.
Had taken something sweet to cut the dust
so jam, on thick, white crusts.
Nights meant early fire in grate
and sometimes kitten claimed;
caught from pithead’s troop,
its feral eyes as full as moons.
Another fetched if killed on road too soon.

The snap tins measured time.

Our whole world paced
by rhythm of rich seams to break
when high and mighty coal
fuelled hearth, and home.
When men were caged, and dropped,
to blast and prop.
When tallied underground became as kin
because each life relied on him, and him, and him.
And if us nippers pushed aside
for ashen, weeping wives,
we’d guess a sort of doom.
And if their chap, kids knew there’d be a day off school.

Men returned to drill and win the coal, and bread.
And all to brave it out despite the dread.
None would forget.
Young minds would rage within but fake that they were grand.
How could they navigate this curse,
to understand,
why they had maimed, or worse, dead dads?

When snap tins measured time.