Back in November 1971, Welsh entertainer Max Boyce, recorded an album called "Live At Treochy". Max had worked 8 years as a miner and wrote a song called, "Duw, it's hard" about the closing of, "the valley's oldest mine, pretending that they're sad".When he sang the song, the audience fell silent. As he sang the words, "'Cos it's hard, Duw, it's hard, harder than they will ever know," no doubt many in the audience in the small Welsh mining town, were lost in their own thoughts.
There is one verse that seems rather appropriate tonight.
"I took my old helmet home with me,
Filled it full of earth,
And I planted little flowers there -
They grew for all their worth.
And it's hanging in the glasshouse now,
A living memory,
Reminding me they could have grown
In vases over me".
Photo: "Three Welsh Miners" Eugene Smith 1950
