Hebburn is but a small town on the south bank of the River Tyne,
Up in North East England sandwiched twixt Jarrow and Gateshead.
Coal lay beneath Hebburn’s riverside crust ready for a famous mine.
Fathers toiled in cramped seams below as the bairns lay safe in bed
Three pits clustered full of that rich heavy coal they call Westphalian
Yet fathers gone too soon, when methane crept unchecked and
exploding fire damp brought them out burnt, twisted and dead
While anxious wives gathered at the pit gates,
a buzzing huddle of numbing tearful dread.
Safe it was not, but a mining disaster at Felling soon changed the rules.
Town name Hebburn derives from heah byrgen or "high burial mound,"
Here Humphry Davy bottled fire damp blown from fissured black jewels,
Hebburn, apt when a collier’s workplace is buried so deep underground,
Davy built a miners’ safety lamp, methane-filled bottles his testing tools
Final trial back down the Hebburn pit, see the gauze draw the fire damp
from naked flames, that burned brighter below ground
On the 9th of January, eighteen hundred and fifteen,
and the bairns and their mam’s all slept sound.
A.McTiernan
