Jock Purdon


1925 - 1998

Poet and folk singer. Born in Nitshill (Glasgow), Purdon was sent as a Bevin Boy to the coal mines in NE England, rather than into the army, during World War II. After the war he remained and his experiences in the mines of County Durham shaped his songs and poems. His work includes Easington Explosion, which describes the mining disaster of 1951 which killed 83, Pitworks, Politics and Poetry and Hally's Piebald Gallowa, the tale of pit-pony eating a miner's banner. He performed his work in a benefit in the Albert Hall to support the miners during their 1984-5 strike.


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