Frank Higgins, 'The Testimony of Patience Kershaw'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

The Testimony of Patience Kershaw

It's good of you to ask me, Sir, to tell you how I spend my days
Down in a coal black tunnel, Sir, I hurry corves to earn my pay.
The corves are full of coal, kind Sir, I push them with my hands and head.
It isn't lady-like, but Sir, you've got to earn your daily bread.

I push them with my hands and head, and so my hair gets worn away.
You see this baldy patch I've got, it shames me like I just can't say.
A lady's hands are lily white, but mine are full of cuts and segs.
And since I'm pushing all the time, I've got great big muscles on my legs.

I try to be respectable, but sir, the shame, God save my soul.
I work with naked, sweating men who curse and swear and hew the coal.
The sights, the sounds, the smells, kind Sir, not even God could sense my shame.
I say my prayers, but what's the use? Tomorrow will be just the same.

Now, sometimes, Sir, I don't feel well, my stomach's sick, my head it aches.
I've got to hurry best I can. My knees are weak, my back near breaks.
And then I'm slow, and then I'm scared these naked men will batter me.
But they're not to blame, for if I'm slow, their families will starve, you see.

Now all the lads, they laugh at me, and Sir, the mirror tells me why.
Pale and dirty can't look nice. It doesn't matter how hard I try.
Great big muscles on my legs, a baldy patch upon my head.
A lady, Sir? Oh, no, not me! I should've been a boy instead.

I praise your good intentions, Sir, I love your kind and gentle heart
But now it's 1842, and you and I, we're miles apart.
A hundred years and more will pass before we're standing side by side
But please accept my grateful thanks. God bless you Sir, at least you tried.

by Frank Higgins

Comments

[honorat.livejournal.com]

I'm always interested in poetry about the Industrial Revolution. Do you happen to know anything about this author? When did he write? Where was he from?

[tree_and_leaf]

Not the OP, but it was written in 1962, but very loosely based on the testimony of Patience Kershaw to the Children’s Employment Commission in 1842. (You can read it here: http://www.victorianweb.org/history/ashley.html ) The song's somewhat sentimentalised - she doesn't complain that the men don't see her as desirable, but that the 'take liberties', which implies either sexual harassment or actual abuse.

No information as to where she worked, but her dialect is clearly from the North of England, and her surname is very strongly associated with East Lancashire or the extreme west of Yorkshire - that sort of trans-Pennine area.

(OT: is it just me, or are the captchas getting more and more illegible?)

[duathir.livejournal.com]

He wrote this in 1969, and he was from Liverpool, but that is all I know about him. Patience Kershaw was a real person, and her testimony is here (http://www.victorianweb.org/history/ashley.html).