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Cumberland coal uses a fictional character, Jack Dunne, who is the ghost of a miner killed in a mine explosion in 1901. The explosion and fires which killed 64 workers were caused by methane gas seeping from the coal and igniting.
John McLachlan
Cumberland Coal
Words and Music by John McLachlan
Pleased to meet you son. My name is Jack Dunne.
I died in the ear of nineteen-o-one.
Down shaft number five of the Cumberland mine.
Hardly a soul that day did survive.
And it’s all aboard on the midnight train for glory.
Heaven bound so they sang.
Sixty-four below, our bodies lie in the coal
While up above the church-bells rang.
Up above the church-bells rang.
I came to this town from halfway the world around,
With promise and hope, a new life could be found.
From fair England's shore, around the old Cape Horn
'Twas here I married -- my first child was born.
And we made the best of life in this dirty shantytown.
I toiled in the darkness below.
But at least I had work and work was hard to find.
So I dug for Dunsmuir’s coal.
I dug for Cumberland coal.
I must tell you now, it was pure hell down there
The smell of gas, always in the air.
Ten hours of every day, we worked hard as slaves,
All that we received: two dollars in pay.
For hours we would lie, ’neath a ceiling three-feet high,
With pick and shovel, on hands and knees.
The colour of your skin, didn’t mean anything
Black or white or Chinese. Black or white or Chinese.
On a cold winter day, to the mine I made my way.
Kissed good-bye the wife I’d not see again.
High above the blue-grey sky as downward we did fly
Not one man that day wanted to die.
But in the heat below the gas seeped from the coal.
All it took was a spark and then it blew.
It ended the life we once knew.
Ended life we once knew.
So now I met you on these streets.
Who did you think you’d meet?
Where lives have been lost the ghosts stay around.
In your time is it still the same?
Do people die as the rich man gains?
It’s always been that way. When will it ever change?
When will it change?
Please to meet you son. My name is jack Dunne.
I died in the ear of nineteen-o-one.
Down shaft number five of the Cumberland mine.
Hardly a soul that day did survive.
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