Estephanie Dunn RCN sent this poem read by Emilia Clarke
The statue has history and heritage and history built into it
Some of the tools used in the making of the statue are over 100 years old The railway lines were made in Workington in 1966. The cobbles or setts are 200 years old, they come from the Dock Road in Liverpool
Ian Hibbert Fire Brigade Secretary shared this poem from an unknown author We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years (The Cry of Toil)
We have fed you all, for a thousand years
And you hail us still unfed,
Though there’s never a dollar of all your wealth
But marks the worker’s dead.
We have yielded our best to give you rest
And you lie on crimson wool.
Then if blood be the price of all your wealth,
Good God! We have paid it in full.
There is never a mine blown skyward now
But we’re buried alive for you.
There’s never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But we are its ghastly crew.
Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the factories where we spin.
If blood be the price of your cursed wealth
Good God! We have paid it in.
We have fed you all for a thousand years–
For that was our doom, you know,
From the days when you chained us in your fields
To the strike of a week ago.
You have taken our lives, and our babies and wives,
And we’re told it’s your legal share;
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth
Good God! We have bought it fair.