Listen to this
poem here read by Stanley Bruce
The shipyard gates are closed, there’s no
future here,
The bulldozers are on their way,
The Caulker chipping, I no longer hear,
There’s an eerie silence over Fittie today!
These gates that I have passed through time and time again,
Will be unhinged and taken away,
“That’s it finished”, “This is the end”,
That’s what I heard them say.
It was the end, those guys were right,
This could never be built up again,
A great industry, now a sorry sight,
An empty yard with ghosts, no men!
And as I drive past here today,
I try to imagine how things could have been,
But sadly, it’s all now faded away,
Behind a great smoke screen.
There’s little left to show the yard was ever here,
If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t see,
Memories are all that remain,
In the hearts of workers, like you and me.
The Neptune Bar, I nip in for a beer,
Then at Fittie I look out at the bay,
But the Caulker chipping, I no longer hear
There’s an eerie silence over Fittie today!
Stanley Bruce
2006.
Dedicated to John Patterson, Burner / Caulker
and Yard Convener who passed away in 2006. |