Living History Events

Madeley featured on BBC Radio 4

Madeley has featured in the first program of BBC Radio 4's series Worked Out (Tuesday 14th February 2006) that looks at Britain's coalfields 20 years after they closed.

Ian McMillan, poet, playwright and presenter, explored the marginal and forgotten coalfields of England through the memories of those who worked in them.

Madeley is regarded as the cradle and the crucible of the Industrial Revolution - featured in the program were Jack and May Smart, and Shelagh Lewis (Madeley Parish Council, Living History Project).

Jack was leader of the Engineering Maintenance team at Kemberton Colliery coalfield and May worked in the Pit office. Shelagh Lewis oversaw the restoration of the 'Nine Men of Madeley' tomb that commemorates the worst mining disaster in the Shropshire Coalfield.

A Poignant Poem
Jack Smart is lying on his low bed
His watch is ticking like water drips
Memories of underground flooding his head
The fault line shifts and the fault line slips
Those mates in the photographs - gone, all gone
Faces fading in the clenching dark
And Jack tells stories now he's the only one
As the ring road circles like a hungry shark
But Jack's voice is strong as it fills the room
And the still pit wheels turn once more
As deep underground a lamp cuts the gloom
And stories and memories open the door
Jack Smart is lying on his low bed
His watch is ticking like water drips
Memories of underground flooding his head
And the fault line shifts and the fault line slips