Video: Labour Martyr Joseph Mairs

Charlie Fox sings and plays guitar, and performs “The Ballad of Joseph Mairs (Million Tons of Coal) by Charlie Fox at the 2014 Joseph Mairs Memorial. Copyright of the song is held by the Fox Family. The video of the performance copyright is held by josephmairs.ca ]

[Music]

[Slide show of photographs of Joseph Mairs, his cenotaph, tombstones of deceased miners, miners working in mineshafts, and striking miners are shown throughout the song]

[C.F.] High on a hillside overlooking Ladysmith Harbour, where they loaded a million tons of coal.

Lies the grave of a young man, just 22 years old. And may God have mercy on his soul.

He lies surrounded by dozens of the more than 600 who died in the dangerous Island mines.

Sons and fathers gone forever, memories dimmed but not forgotten in the slow and bitter unwinding of the time.

So sleep on my brothers, in the rock of ages. You died for a million tons of coal.

And sleep on my heroes, you are not forgotten and may God have mercy on your souls.

He died in prison. In that fortress called Okala, a place of tears and blood and stone. He died for freedom, for safety and a good life, and he died for a million tons of coal.

[Musical interlude]

[C.F.] Well, they are not forgotten, oh, these heroes of the coal mines. They lived and died for rights that we now own. In gas-filled mines and on picket lines, with danger at every hand. Catching a glimpse of Galilee, but never reaching the Promised Land.

You can fill in the mine, you can build on the graves. But, you can’t kill the spirit that this Island made.

And there’s a lot of coal miners still waiting to be paid. On Vancouver Island.

[Applause]