The Pitman Poet

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

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The Jarrow Marchers

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

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