He was born and bred in Gateshead, this famous Geordie lad
And on his seventh birthday, got a football from his dad
It didn’t take him long to learn to play that game
Though the other kids scoffed him, he was on his way to fame
CHORUS:
They come from many miles aroond on Grab a Granny Neet
From the country and the toons on Grab a Granny Neet
As long as you’re not fussy, and ye divvent have two left feet
You can hardly fail to score on Grab a Granny Neet Continue reading
CHORUS: It was thirteen miles at the most on the Great North Run
From Newcastle to the South Shields coast, on the Great North Run
In Newcastle on Tyne ev’ry year,
On the Town Moor there is a fair,
The Hoppings in the last full week of June.
The largest travelling fair around,
Gets the show off the ground,
Race Saturday commencing at twelve noon.
In the North of England there’s a beautiful land,
A Kingdom of castles and silvery sands,
Where the wall built by Hadrian, the Emperor, stands,
That’s Northumbria
I was born in Newcastle on the Tyne
I’ve lived in Northumbria all the time
But now I must leave
Friends and family don’t you grieve
In Australia I’ll be doing fine
CHORUS : So here’s to the memory of Tommy Armstrong
He was the pitman poet, righting all life’s wrongs
In the words of his poems which are now folk songs
Here’s to the memory of Tommy Armstrong
He was the pitman poet, recording life and times
In the late eighteen hundreds in his verses and his rhymes
When the main source of earnings was working down the mines
And sometimes the wages there were paid back in fines
by Wilf Mitford, 1986
On the fifth of October on a bright and sunny day
Nineteen hundred and thirty-six, they set out on their way
There were two boys and a woman, two hundred and seven men
And a dog known as paddy, who left and returned again
CHORUS : They were the Jarrow Marchers, unemployment was there crime
Marching down to London town, from Jarrow on the Tyne
