Showing posts with label Port Talbot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Port Talbot. Show all posts

Steel Town - What Now?

The whooshing noises and huge clouds of steam 
like the red fire-breathing dragon it once was - now herald its death
and with one last breath 
...the dragon is dead!
Welsh steel is no more
It is the end of an era
The machinery stops
and it spews out its rivers of virgin molten steel no more
and silence falls
and the temperatures drop
and the dust settles 
enshrouding 120 years of steel production
Steel town - closed under the need to go "green"
thousands of jobs - gone
lost for a lower carbon footprint 
decades of history
of family lineage
Grandfathers
Fathers
and sons
this right of passage
generation after generation 
this place which put food on the tables of thousands
street after street after street of workers 
every morning heading to the works 
whole communities decimated 
What now?
Steel is "Steel Town"
"Steel Town" is steel.
What now?
Contractors and external business
large and small - will close
What now?
What are those with many years of experience going to do?
Those who know nothing else
but steel...
What now?
What are they going to do?