Two poems from ‘The Reading Miner: Sydney’s thoughts as he leaves Reading and heads off to his new life in South Wales and Words to his new love ‘Walk Me Home Through the Valley’
Title: “Walk Me Home Through the Valley”
Spoken by Sydney to his new love, Megan.
Verse 1
I came down the line with a number and name
No uniform, medal, no rifle or fame
Just coal in my lungs and dust on my skin
A stranger who works where the daylight is thin
Verse 2
They say don’t look twice, don’t promise a thing
The valley remembers what silence can bring
Your father knows danger, your mother knows loss
love is a weight a girl bears at cost
Chorus
But I’ll walk you home through the valley tonight
Where the lamps flicker low and the slag heaps shine white
No vows, no tomorrow, no need to pretend
Just two beating hearts at the edge of the end
Verse 3
I dig for a country that won’t say my name
They cheer for the boys who went out on the flame
But here in the dark where our war is fought
We hold to the lives that the coal seams have caught
Chorus
So I’ll walk you home through the valley tonight
Past chapel and shadows and windows gone light
If I leave in the morning or stay ‘till I’m old
Let this hour be warm in a world built of coal
Final Line (quiet)
If I lie here forever, remember me kind.
Sydney’s thoughts on the train as he says goodbye to his family and friend and leaves for South Wales and the mines:
I didn’t look back when the train pulled out.
Not because I didn’t want to —
because if I had,
I don’t think I’d have got on it at all.
Funny what you carry with you.
Not the case.
Not the coat
Not at all
It’s the last look someone gives you
when they don’t know it’s the last one, you’ll remember.
Mam tried to be brave.
Dad shook my hand like I was already a man he didn’t quite know anymore.
And Elsie…
Elsie didn’t cry.
That’s what’s doing for me now.
I can still feel her hand in mine —
like she’d left something there on purpose,
More than a handkerchief
just enough to remind me
I belong somewhere that isn’t underground.
I tell myself I’ll be back.
Of course I will.
Everyone says that.
You don’t get on a train thinking you won’t come home —
you just wonder when.
(The train gathers speed.)
I’m not frightened in the way people think.
It’s not fear of the dark —
it’s fear of being useless.
Of not being enough.
Of standing there while other people carry the weight.
They say the Welsh won’t want us.
They say the miners will laugh, or worse,
turn their backs.
I don’t blame them.
If I’d grown up with coal in my lungs
and a stranger turned up with soft hands and a borrowed lamp,
I’d laugh too.
But I’ll learn.
I know I will.
You don’t walk away from work like that — work that matters —
just because it’s hard.
(A quieter beat.)
I keep thinking of Elsie.
Not in any grand way.
Just the ordinary things.
Walking nowhere in particular.
Nothing special to say.
That’s what hurts most —
missing what you didn’t realise was precious at the time.
I wish I’d said more.
I wish I’d promised less.
(The rhythm steadies. Resolve enters.)
Still — this matters.
I believe that.
Lights don’t stay on by themselves.
Trains don’t run on hope.
And wars aren’t won by uniforms alone.
If coal is what they need,
then coal is what I’ll give.
Not because I’m brave.
Because I can.
So, I’ll go where the tracks take me.
I’ll do the work that’s put in front of me.
I’ll come back when it’s done
and tell them what it was like.
That’s the plan anyway.
(A faint, almost hopeful smile in the voice.)
Funny thing is —
right now,
with the countryside sliding past the window,
I don’t feel like I’m going to my end.
I feel like I’m on my way
to becoming someone I haven’t met yet.