Camera clicks mining town - captures blacklegs marching down
To the pit as strikers’ wives - hiss and spit with eyes like knives
In this photograph displayed - treachery on vile parade
What an image what a crime - blacklegs marching to the mine
Chorus:
Blacklegs have a blackleg band - women who with tin-pans stand
Beat out rhythms for the damned - thud thud thud goes every hand
Would that justice could aspire - to such heights of raging ire
Rising from this female choir - burning like a funeral pyre
Wives all glare as scabs march by - frozen in the camera’s eye
With the scabs are boys in blue - dirty work for dirty crew
Women standing at the gate - bait and loudly castigate
Thunder like the crack of doom - echoes in the baleful gloom
Chorus:
Every robin in a cage - puts all heaven in a rage
So said Blake and this sad scene - illustrates what those words mean
Photograph is black & grey - Ryhope town of yesterday
Image with more power than pen - strikers’ wives and blackleg men
Chorus:
