A thousand unclimbed chimneys but the soot lay heavy on his half starved frame,
and the woman,a name he could not pronounce waited in the darkened street to pounce upon unwary boys and men,
and then the clinging of the silt at low tide on the Thames, where the lens of greedy eyes would spy out,hear the cry out of the mudlarks
but no larking there.
The gears that grind and inner wheels that wind.

Northern towns do not exist
they're just a story that persists in our collective memory,
a nightmare that we waken from.
These mill town dressing gown like nursery rhymes
designed to make us think we live in better times,
wrapped us up in cotton wool.
Until
we were just as full of fear and fantasy
as our collective memory.

Industrialisation was the sow that suckled pigs,
look at them now,
Swines
don't talk to me of better times
don't talk to me at all.