At 5.15 a.m. on a cold morning in January 1967, Durham coal miner Tom Leak was cycling home from his night'sshift at the local pit.
In South Hetton, just past PesspoolBridge, he noticed a Mark X Jaguar
saloon car, poorly parked, about fourteen inches from the kerb, and also damaged. Snow covered the backwindow, bonnet and much of the top. He cupped his hands and peered intothe car through the near-side passenger window. A man was lying across theback seat. Leak opened the door, said loudly,'Hey, mate, you can't park there,' and shook his left leg. As he did so, Leakrealised that the man was dead. He hailed three passing colleagues, alsogoing home, and they called the police. A local GP, Dr John Hunter, was then summoned, though the police advised him not to touch the body. It was clear that the man, who had been shot three times, was a murder victim - Angus Sibbet'
The key though to the song is the miner whose presence in the tale reflects on both the murderous events that took place in the 60's but also a mining disaster that took place in the previous century. All the pieces are accurately told right down to the cars in the story. The final verse when what i assume are the ghosts of mining folk from the disaster ather round the car is filled with the names given to there respective jobs including the pit ponies.
The theory put forward by the prosecutors of the murder was that the vicitm had been skimming money off his collections and that the club owners he worked for (owners of The Birdcage Club) got wise to this and killed him although the actual evidence was very flimsy and the final surviving defendant has always proclaimed his innocence.
If you have an affinitiy with the north east of england the song is very moving, to me the final verse is one of the most beautiful he has yet penned.
