credit unidentified photographer
…
A week later I was stood on the Larry cart
of that massive steel hulk of coke oven A
waiting watching the deck as the smoke
gasses fumes rose from the rows of oven lids
men dim ghosts carrying lances wearing hoods
walked through the blue green tinged haze
walked the cobbled top in wooden clogs
but it was the running men drew my attention
not the screams, not the smell of his searing skin.
@Rob Cullen 1976.
credit unknown photographer.
….
In 1973 I left Cardiff Art School and worked across the road in British Steels East Moors Steelworks raising money to travel to the USA. I worked in Quality Control which meant I moved around the steel plant, engaged in sampling various products mostly on the coal and coking side. I witnessed at first hand the brutality of heavy industry as experienced by the workers & what I witnessed in 1973 and again in 1974 for a short period has informed my writing and politics ever since. This poem is about helping a sixteen year old illiterate boy, a school leaver to get a job, to help him fill in an application form. The poem is about witnessing, a week later this boys involvement in a seriousn industrial accident in which he was badly burnt. I still think of him.
@robcullen220324.
Celfypridd 