Extract from TIN & FISHES (a play for voices)

 

by Pauline Sheppard

 

First performed at Geevor Tin Mine in 2006. Since then it has been used as a dramatic text for Penwith College Media Students; a 15 minute version was writtten for Cornwall Council's Sustainable Communities Conference; and a new short version appears in the current edition (No 217) of Planet Magazine, the Welsh Internationalist. The words come from the real memories and personal anecdotes of people from the community of St. Just; with a little editing they tell a simple truth about people, place and change.

 

EXTRACT FROM TIN & FISHES, A PLAY FOR VOICES:

 

It’s the 1980s, Geevor Mine has closed.

Cross-conversational dialogue between two women, two

miners and two teenagers.

 

WOMAN ONE

They’s allus been ups an’ downs to

trade ‘ere. Tin and fishes, bound to

come right again.

KID ONE

What’s your dad doin’?

MINER ONE

When you think they advertised for

workers here in the sixties. Jobs

goin’ beggin’ in Cornwall they said.

Ities, Poles an’ all come over.

KID TWO

Went up Nottingham, work in coal, got

a postcard a year ago, nuthen since.

What about yours?

WOMAN ONE

We had the Clay Works, Telephone

Exchange, Land’s End Radio ...

KID ONE

Still down Geevor, clearin’ up.

They’re workin’ Saturdays for nuthen.

WOMAN TWO

An’ over Penzance we had Finns Shoes,

Cardboard Box Company, Penlee Quarry;

an’ Hayle ‘Lectric Works, Knitting

Mill over Bodriggy, Holmans; J & F

Pool, John Heathcote Textiles, Rank

Bush Murphy - what happened?

KID TWO

Fuck all ‘ere.

MINER TWO

All gone now.

MINER ONE

Heard say they’re gonna dump nuclear

waste down they shafts.

KID TWO

All I want’s a set of wheels, ounce of

skunk, good sounds, few beers.

2.

WOMAN ONE

No kiddie want go school in a handknitted

jumper. All labels these days;

and don’t save for nuthen. I can’t

afford to go away on holiday no more,

can you?

KID ONE

I read about how this guy invented a

computer game, made a shit-load of

money. You can work in IT anywhere.

MINER TWO

I don’t understand nuthen no more.

When I was twelve, I knew where I was

to. TV closed down midnight, weren’t

no mobile phones, no cds, no

computers, no CCTV. Now I’m lost but

every bugger else know where I’m to.