The Pit

As the cage dropped suddenly into darkness The working morning had begun Step in and see how, for the last quarter of a century, your coal was won And how it is still won, twenty four hours 'round the clock You're in a two hundred yard long coal face now Temperature often reached eighty degrees It's three feet six inches high from floor to room None knew when the foul air underground might not cause a disastrous explosion Or a landslide might at any moment bring down the roof and walls of the tunnel The people of Britain are building Drilling out from their native rock The foundations of the future To coal we must now turn again For all the strength that we shall need In the years to come