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Mar 2, 2023Liked by Tom Cox

That opening gem from your Dad, your fuckin ell reply and the glorious RJ blast made a beautiful introduction. Wishing you wonderful Spring writing months ahead 🙂

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I must be getting on a bit, I never thought I'd be nostalgic, like you, for the slagheaps of my youth playing on the slopes of Sherwood pit tip in Mansfield "Woodus" in the early 80's. Another Mansfield lad, who went on to sub-edit a national daily paper, wrote this lament to the very same long-lost slagheaps of his youth... (it deserves a wider audience)

"They’re takin’ away the slagheaps from the landscape of my youth

Murderin’ all those mountains of blood and sweat and booze

To tittivate the countryside, emasculate grim charm

By erecting fancy hillocks of bushes grass and gorse

But remember those pit tips, raise them high wi’ pride

Make them into monuments to miners who had died

Towering over churches, mocking factory spires

Dominating Nottingham-shire like angels in graveyards

If they want fancy countryside they got the Yorkshire Dales

The Derby Peak and Norfolk Broads and weather-beaten Wales

So leave alone my slagheaps, let them smoke and steam

Let them boast their living scars

To hell with pretty-fying folk!"

...and his forthright recitation can be enjoyed here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztcYBQ0UENA&ab_channel=caodavies

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