I was born in the Rhondda Valley into a mining community. My father was a miner as were some of my brothers. I would like to share this poem with readers of the Review as a tribute to the recent mining fatalities but also in memory of all the men who have lost their lives mining for coal. The poem was written many years ago by my brother Raymond Chappell. – Sally Brooks, Highbury Road, Bream.

As daylight casts its piercing fingers

Across the valley still asleep

Silent now the voices of her singers

Lovers lay embraced in slumber deep.

Birds did not sing their early morning song

As sheep homeward made their weary way

In the air a feeling something's wrong

But what it was no-one could say.

This peaceful state however was not to last

As down the valley came a sound

Shattering the silence with its icy blast

For men were in trouble underground.

Nothing could stop the penetration

Of the hooter's piercing call

Crying out in desperation

For men trapped by gas and rooftop fall.

Before the hooter had uttered its last sound

The rescue teams already had arrived

Into the bowels of the ground

They went to see if any had survived.

How they worked to save those stricken men

But no answer came to their call,

They dug, called and dug again,

Only silence came from behind that mighty wall.

Night time came before the news was broken

By a man whose eyes were filled with tears

The words he used so quietly spoken

Confirmed the worst of all their fears.

Screams and shouting filled the air

Prayers said aloud from everywhere

Tears ran down from tired eyes

Of mothers and newly widowed wives.

Names were called out to those below

Dafydd, Tom, Rhys and Joe,

But those men now in eternal slumber lay

No more to see the light of day.

And as I turned to walk away

I heard a voice so sadly say

Lord you took from each man his soul,

Is this the price we have to pay for coal?