The words were written by a young Welsh coal miner, Idris Davies, right after what he called the angry summer of 1926. There was a general strike in Britain which was lost, and he determined to leave coal mining. He studiewd for four years. Went to school; became a school teacher. But this poem he wrote will stand for mnay years I believe, because it referred...well he wrote it up in the heat of his agony in 1926 and the general strike. It has many layers of meaning.