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12/04/2014

Painting and poem at Miners' Institute.

On September 11th, 2014, a ceremony took place at Newbridge Memo (Memorial Hall) in the Gwent Valleys to unveil a painting and poem to commemorate the victims of a 19th Century colliery disaster.

A total of 268 men and boys died in an explosion and fire at the Prince of Wales Colliery in nearby Abercarn, on September 11, 1878.

Artist Roy Guy has produced a large-scale painting in mosaic style to commemorate the disaster. It has been hung in the main stairwell at the Memorial Hall, which has recently been renovated.

Grahame Davies was asked to contribute some words to accompany the painting and composed the following piece, which was unveiled along with the painting at the ceremony.

We do not ask you to remember us:
you have your lives to live as we had ours,
and ours we spent on life, not memory.
We only ask you this - that you live well,
here, in the places that our labour built,
here, beneath the sky we seldom saw,
here, on the green earth whose black vein we mined,
and feel the freedom that we could not find.

Grahame Davies was unable to attend the ceremony, due to work commitments in London, but his daughter Haf, also a poet, took part in his place, read the poem at the ceremony and took part in the unveiling with Roy Guy and James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers rock band.

The event received coverage in a number of media outlets, including the South Wales Argus., and the BBC. A video of the event can be viewed here.