‘A Lifetime of Digging’ tells the story of my great, granddad, John Henry Gillott who worked down the pit from the age of nine. He then became a champion vegetable grower in his retirement and despite his hardships lived to the ripe old age of ninety-three. One of my earliest memories is of him showing me how to tell the time with his ornate, carved Austrian wall clock.

Lyrics

He winds the clock and sets the time. Spent years down the pit since the age of nine. He checks his fob watch and moves the dials. Escaped the cave-ins and the trials.

A lifetime of digging, a lifetime of digging.

The clock chimes each and every hour. The price of time was toil and horror. Carved bird on top with eagle wings. Soars out of the dark coal face and sings.

Friends died underground in early graves. Put down his pick, took up a spade. Won trophies at the village show. Proud of the produce he could grow.

Retired with a lifetimes stack of coal. Extracted from that blackened hole. A miner’s life was all he know. Digging the coal and soil too.

The clock still chimes on my mother’s wall. Tells my great granddad’s story there for all. See him in his waistcoat in my mind, Showing me how to tell the time.

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