Markham Colliery with Mr Lee*
I was about eight or nine
Mr Lee took me to a coal mine
Markham Colliery, Derbyshire
An ex-miner who lost a leg
Arranged to take me to see
The pit head
Previews of possible futures ahead
A visit to pay his union dues
So took me with him
To get me out from under mum’s shoes
Driven there in his adapted mini
Hand crank lever, no gears to choose
No clutch, No foot
Grey snow of cigarette soot covering the trousers of the false leg
Bushed briskly with hand as we go
How did Mr Lee lose his leg, I wonder?
What did he do to run the risk?
Spinning headstock
Steel girders and brick block
Gears and cages
Shifts and working phrases
Effort measured in tonnes and yards cut
Man with a stick, a deputy
Pointed to things, machinery
Workshops, lamp room, and pit head baths
We can start you with a broom
Begin by sweeping the path
Never-ending coal dust
Black gold particulates
Made the air heavy with earthy perfume
NUM badge awarded
Inducted as a union child
You’re a member now
Remember how we stick together
Solidarity is our tether
Community, class, and people
A town’s church with a crooked steeple
White pit helmet I wore to ride my bike
With pride up and down the road, I cycled
No attempt to hide my destiny
The future’s coal, it has to be!
Yet five or six years later
Bike changed, helmet gone
The Tories said to miners’ pits there will be none
Enemies within, you’re not needed
Warnings from the past about the future were not heeded
A life of Labour disregarded
Sacrifices were made when the nation needed
Now inefficient and ineffective (they said)
Like Mr Lee’s leg, an industry – defective.
(c) John Goodwin, 2026
*Mr and Mrs Lee were neighbours who lived down the road. A generation or two older than my parents, they would ‘babysit’ and look after us when mum and dad were out. Most Saturday evenings, I would be at their house watching Match of the Day with Mr Lee. As well as a miner, he had been a cook in the army. He always made a version of lamb stew with barley to eat hot while we watched the big game. He was a habitual heavy smoker, and their red leatherette sofa was always covered in a fine coating of ash. They owned a budgie that could swear.
Building Work in Progress
Towers not of bricks
Of basements and buildings
Glass atriums
Exposed concrete honesty
No tricks
Differently-shaped objects
From the ground up
Out, over, wide and down aesthetics
A materiality of form and function
Towards a very specific figure
A new position
A novel initiative
Forces pushing
Pulling
Standing
Of the relationships between facts, framing and form
Against the vernacular
A far-fetched, angular story.
(c) Images and text, John Goodwin, 2026. Image is of the Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach, Germany, by Author, May 2026: Pentax Auto110.
Heat*
Pungent heat
Beneath my feet
The detritus of the fishing fleet
Sand and bone
Scale and shell
An intoxicating smell
Hard work and graft
Nets fore and aft
Multicoloured sails
Sailors travails
The bounty ashore
Salted, smoked and cured
Prepared outdoors
On hot sand, in heat.
(c) Images and Text, John Goodwin 2008 and 2026.
* In 2008, I was fortunate to visit Ghana, my first trip to Africa. I went on a day trip that included a visit to a fishing village. It was the hottest place I have ever visited. The first image was taken from atop an old abandoned lighthouse.
Orwell and Me: A Sociological Origin Story
Observe, record, reflect, repeat
Practices I have always done
Files, notebooks, photographs
…but incomplete
Action without a frame
A childish flaneur without aim
What is this that I do?
…and for who?
Sociological knowledge is yet to accrue
Then, imagination roused by Eric Blair
Past resident of the rue du Pot de Fer
An outsider from established stock
This was the only thing I took from school
That I would never give back
An 80s education for the reserve labour pool
Those Orwell books from Manor Secondary
Keeping them, I broke the rules
My own school motto for the swipe
…titulos fictos ad culpam meam occultandam:
The Spike
A Collier’s Tale
The Aragon Front with Kopp
The Fairy Story
Doublespeak and damnatio memoriae
Not a full inventory
Early encounters with a sociological lens
Orwell and Me
Still a school disappointment, no vainglory
Yet a scaffolding upon which to build
A detour via nursing, hard work, but unfulfilled
Fateful moments meant a change of track
An underqualified school failure
…the academy welcomed me back
To understand the life-chances of my social layer
Tools to examine the long-term consequences of
Lodging houses, unemployment, and mining in the near pitch-black
Not an allayer or sanitiser, instead
…a storyteller of class, much needed since Thatcher’s 1980s attack.
© John Goodwin, 2026, Submitted to the Joy in Research Showcase, University of Leicester. (titulos fictos ad culpam meam occultandam = fake titles to hide my guilt)
Don’t let those Dogs in here!
Cú Chulainn
Cú Sídhe
Cŵn Annwn
Not pets, but messengers
Securing passage
Not to ravage.
Don’t let Pat bring those dogs in here.
She moaned, concerned, but no fear.
Big Pat or little Pat? Her sister asked.
One of the Gilhooleys.
Don’t let those dogs in here
They have come too soon
I will be along duly.
Yet the younger sister had seen a similar dog before
An under-sink apparition in a child’s memory
Whose is that Dog?
What dog?
The one under the sink?
A trio discouraging away from the brink
Cú Chulainn
Cú Sídhe
Cŵn Annwn.
(c) John Goodwin, 2026
Early to Bed
Early to bed
Pillow under head
Can’t sleep, so shout down
Keep on calling, but no reply
Then heavy steps on the tread
Dad’s home from work
Up he comes
Weary steps
The door opens
He is dark against the light
He tells me to go to sleep
He needs to eat
My eyes close, but I can still see his silhouette
Phosphenes in the dark
….eyes closed but in sight
Moving colours, floating, not set.
A scene replayed behind my eyes
…with sleepy bye-byes.
(c) John Goodwin, 2026
Lonely Soldier*
A slow Sunday afternoon
A mind meanders back
In front of the fire that glows
Memories of a chance meeting
Unplanned not requested
Time has passed, but a strong recall
….despite how fleeting
‘Take a ring from a lonely solider’ he said
‘I’m leaving today’
Placed in hand a remembrance token
A hope for connection softly spoken
I’ve no one else, nobody to recall
An evening train
One way, leave all
A remembered glimpse, please do not spurn.
Take a ring from a lonely soldier.
*My grandmother told a brief story about being approached at a railway station in the 1940s by someone who described themselves as a ‘lonely soldier’. He gave her a ring and was never seen again. It’s a story from my childhood that is both intriguing and haunting. So much that is unresolved, so many questions.
(c) John Goodwin, 2026
Motion True
The river was constant
Motion true
Movements of a blue hue
Not the usual sludge brown
Reflecting the sunlight
Sparkly white glints
Shine and shimmer
A downstream hint
Suggestions of the past
Look to the river
Humanity vast
(c) John Goodwin, 2026
Notification of A Premature Demise
Sorry for the distress and confusion
You died on 28/12/2025
But as far as I can reasonably tell
…I am still very much alive
An apparition?
Did I miss something?
No longer to thrive?
You were immediately resurrected
…reinstated to ‘active status’
Now (re)risen
An erroneous notification of my death
Still breathing and taking breath
We fully recognise that being incorrectly recorded as deceased
….is upsetting and unacceptable
We have taken steps as far as practicable
To reinforce our safeguards
And prevent a similar situation
…other early discards, and disregards
We are pleased you are well, not easily eradicable
…and grateful that your non-death was brought to our attention
Did we mention our apologies for any undue distress?
…and recognise initially could not have cared less
Mistakes made pre-injection
No eulogy, no confession.
(c) John Goodwin, 2026
A Tinker’s Mark
A secret sign unknown to the respectable
Unseen, unobserved, not visible
Known to many who sauntered, looking and searching
A house marked as hospitable
Shown the way to a host with nothing
…but who would give everything
Help others and atone, avoid purgatory
Do you have a cup of tea?
Or a slice and marge?
A nod in the affirmative
The white painted seat is away from the house
They would come and sit
Rest and drink
She would permit
Then a weary return to the grind and the mend
Travelling without end.
(c) John Goodwin, 2026
Homemade Clothes
She made me a nylon purple suit
… with anchors on the gold buttons
No fly, she couldn’t do those.
Making clothes out of necessity
Shop-bought clothes disparity
Make do and mend
Repurpose and save
The life of cloth extends
With a nostalgia for paper patterns, 1970s trends
Homemade shirts with big collars
…but the cowboy print was upside down
Small strands of fine lint
The magic of a store-bought t-shirt
… a picture of a lion on white
Market stall fabrics, she makes multiple dresses all alike
Like a housecoat, but…
Certainly not haute
(c) John Goodwin, 2026
He Sings In The Griffin
He sings songs in The Griffin
The Britannia and The Rose and Crown
Different for grandad to
working down a sewer
He sings proper songs
By the upright or all alone
A Lanza tribute – because you’re mine
In key and on time
Beer arrives in a jug
Dry-throated entertrainer
Baked pies and savouries
For the onlookers
A gryphon’s strength and courage?
A faux orphée singing songs for rounds of drinks
Grandma wouldn’t let him finish
Thinks more of regulars than his marriage
Time for home, Joe with a beer jug in tow
(c) John Goodwin, 2026
The Promise
The words of C Wright Mills reworked, this combination (c) John Goodwin, 2025
Uniform Multiform
I found the photograph in a time-bound album.
Blond wavy hair he had,
and a uniform, as he could not multiform
I couldn’t find the details of his birthday
nor a record of his death day.
They found that the pictures had gone, erased and forgotten.
Similar images can now be found online and
are easy to find. They are alike but different.
Many found the image transgressive.
The image was found to be distasteful.
Others find it striking if regressive.
[They] don’t want to hear about it anymore,
but the images shout disquieting questions:
An ode :
Why do ordinary people do terrible things?
Don’t all mothers weep?
What would you do?
But I’m only a cog in a bigger network of things,
A resonant link between then and now.
(c) John Goodwin, 2025
Best Bit of Love
Perhaps my paternal grandmother didn’t like me
Second born to her second born, but
A namesake of her first,
taken too soon by pyloric stenosis
John D. is not John M., but perhaps I came too close.
My maternal grandma loved me
Hugged me and gave me time and wisdom
Of food and joy, and of family
The floury fingers of bread for tea, foody treasures in the dark pantry.
A differently hard life for both….
but Alice loved me.
(c) John Goodwin, 2025