Pat Borthwick
The Winder
From high in his corrugated tower
his eyes fix tight on white marks.
He listens for the telephone, the link
from where the shift,
more than a thousand feet below,
is finishing, to here, where
with his switchboard and swivel chair,
one button pressed,
one lever unlocked, pushed forward,
he brings steel toe-capped men
spilling from the shaft
into the lamp store and shower room.
He cannot see their shuttered cage
wound up at forty feet per second.
He cannot see the landing stage
or hear the count-out man
unlock their chain curtains.
He must not look above
through the sky-shaped gap
where a flash of gulls weave
beyond the headstocks.
His hours are straight ahead of him.
He works his shift
matching white marks, white marks
daubed on the winding ropes
and the metal struts beside them.
He checks and changes these
to counteract tonnage stretch.
Coal and men. Men and coal.
A balance not calculable
by digital technology,
but supple knowledge of coal.
Page(s) 114
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