The Grampound Times
Christmas 2006 (Edition 43)
Our community in Cornwall
As I sit here in late October pondering just what to include in the Christmas edition of the Grampound Times, something that I personally find rather sad has hit the local news. South Crofty tin mine, dormant to all intents and purposes for over two years while the new owners attempt to bring it back into production, has just learned that the Governments Development Agency that has always had the authority to compulsorily purchase land but has never ever so far done so, is intending to purchase the South Crofty site for regeneration purposes.
Cornwall ’s last tin mine will be no more, and with it will go the last segment of our Cornish industrial heritage in mining.
DAVID PROWSE, the Cornish poet whose work I really enjoy, has the knack of using just the right words when writing about seemingly everyday subjects. In February 1991, yes 1991, David wrote a poem that is as poignant today as it was 15 years ago. His poem is entitled……
The Closing Time
Winch me up, lads, take me ‘home
An’ close ol’ Crofty’s gate,
The money – men ‘ave ‘ad their say,
She’s past ‘er sell – by date.
Aw, we can offer sweat an’ blood
An’ put our labour in
But all we are an’ all we give
Won’t change the price ‘o tin.
For you and me, it’s down the road
An’ thanks for what you’ve done
But, when the penny drops at last,
What else shall we become?
I been ‘ere twenty years or more
So what’s a man to do?
Oh, you’re a miner, boy, they’ll say,
You better join the queue.
What healthy, thrivin’ enterprise
Will look to take us on?
They don’t exist ‘cause those that did,
Like minin’ days, are gone.
I love this land of quiet hope
But these are sorry times
With empty shops, an empty purse
And empty Cornish mines.
Oh, we’ll survive, boys, we’ll survive
‘Cause that’s the way we’re made
An’ yet we won’t be quite the same
When all the dust is laid.
For, when we think of links an’ chains
That set our race apart,
We’ll know they’re buried deep below
With Crofty’s broken heart.
DAVID PROWSE
© 2006 Grampound with Creed Parish Council