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Colin Randall writes: By very welcome coincidence, Andrew Curry’s fascinating article on the role of music and humour in the story of coalmining appeared just before Ed Pickford posted at Facebook his song about the Durham miners’ gala, a great occasion in the calendar of our county but also so uproarious that my mother always forbade me to attend.
I think for once I can allow the words of Ed’s song and the clip say all that needs to be said.
Decades after Ed marvelled folk club crowds as part of the unforgettable trio, Northern Front, he continues to impress us with the sheer quality of his writing. And never forget, he gave us this wonderful beast of a song …
Mention of Andrew’s piece yesterday stirred memories for Ed. “I remember seeing Close the Coalhouse Door in that The People’s Theatre Newcastle in the 1960s,” he wrote. “Alex Glasgow I first came across when he interviewed me after I’d written Seaham Harbour Bay in the 1960s.”
** Ed’s comment prompted me to look up Seaham Harbour Bay, his song commemorating a lifeboat tragedy that took the lives of all five RNLI men on board the George Elmy and four of the five men they had rescued from the fishing vessel Economy, in trouble in a force eight wind and stormy seas off Dawdon Colliery, 1962. The one survivor had managed to grasp the propeller shaft of the capsized lifeboat with one hand while pushing the other through a ruffle hole of the keel.
It was a devastating event for Seaham, expertly and movingly evoked in Ed’s lyrics. I was delighted to find a version by Marie Little, very fondly remembered from North-eastern folk club days.
Join the Salut! Live Facebook group. Visit this link nowSee also:
Ed Pickford – The Big Interview (from 2009, Part One)
Pitmen Poets: Their version of Ed Pickford’s Workers’ Song was Salut! Live’s track of 2022 and Bare Knuckle – on which it appears – album of the year
The Big Interview (Part Two)
Johnny Handle sings Ed’s song, Last of the Pitman Painters (No Motor Cars in His Spennymoor Town)
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