The Charge of the Blue Locusts

The Charge of the Blue Locusts

Half a mass picket, half a mass picket
Half a mass picket onward
All in the Battle of Orgreave
Rode the mounted police
Charge for the scabs ! he said
Into the valley of beatings
Rode the striking pickets

Forward the defiant miners
Was there a striker dismayed
Not tho’ the miner knew
TUC tops has blundered
Theirs not to defy
Theirs not to hear the cries
Theirs but to fight and try
Into the valley of beatings
Ran the striking pickets

Mounted police to the right of them
Riot cops to the left of them
Ranks of blue locusts in front of them
Marched and thundered

Charged at with baton and shield
Boldly they dodge then yield
Into the jaws of authority
Into the ranks of blue locusts
Ran the striking pickets

Flash’d all their truncheons bare
Flash’d as they swung through air
Thumping on their shields there
Charging a miners’ army while
Most of the country wondered

Plunged into the cavalry-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke
Miner and striker
Reel’d from the truncheon blows
Shatter’ed and sundered


Mounted police to the right of them
Riot cops to the left of them
Ranks of blue locusts behind them
Marched and Thundered

Charged at with baton and shield
They that had fought so well
Facing a bloody coppers’ hell
All that was left of them
Left of the battered magnificent miners

Peter Burton