Tomorrow The Sorrow Begins
This song resulted from listening to a radio interview in 2006 about the impending closure of the last Swan Hunter shipyard on the Tyne. The emotions of the worker being interviewed were mixed. He was proud of the ships that he had helped produce over the years and at the same time, desperately sad. It wasn't just the loss of earnings, as there was other work available, but instead more the loss of a way of life, a comradeship that you could only understand if you had been part of it.
I was very pleased when Anthony John Clarke asked me whether he could record the song, and you can find his excellent version of it on his album "Tuesday We Will Fly"
The kids hold balloons coloured red white and blue
Their mothers cheer with them as they always do
In my heart I’m weeping but I’m cheering too
As tomorrow the sorrow begins
The kids eyes are popping as they take in her size
The champagne bottle explodes on her side
She slips in the water and away with the tide
Tomorrow the sorrow begins
Chorus
I’m waving as the last ship sails from the Tyne
I helped to build her, so part of her is mine
She’s sailing away with my hopes and my dreams
Tomorrow the sorrow begins
Our yard once employed thousands of men
I prayed for those good times to come back again
It never happened - my prayers were in vain
Tomorrow the sorrow begins
Those guillotines and flangers are silent and still
There’s an emptiness there no sound will ever fill
As the rain drizzles down my last hopes to kill
Tomorrow the sorrow begins
Chorus
When I got my letter, I was just numb inside
I knew it would happen but it still hurt my pride
When I showed it to my wife I thought she would cry
But tomorrow the sorrow begins
She showed me the paper there’s work to be had
Down at the call centre and the pay’s not too bad
I said that I’d go down and I saw it made her glad
Tomorrow the sorrow begins
Chorus