Worked for both the Grey and the green Murphy’s ( Elephant John rest in piss ) and then laying gas pipes with RSKennedy and PLC in the from 1971 to about 1977 . Hand digging mostly. Day hire most of it . Picked up in the morning and dropped off at opening time at the pub . Got your shillings when you got in the bar …. It got a bit better , but still 11 - 12 quid a day in the mid 70’s . Some of the gangs were great - and like anywhere else there were bummers . Despite being English I was treated well . Hard life but we had the crack together sometimes day and night . But nobody could get old in the job .
A very sad song about horrible deaths that irish navvies suffered while working.....the irish ganger, a man so hated by his fellow paddies...my father started as a navvie and worked his up to driving a jcb. He saw good strong men absolutely wiped out physically by the time they were 40.
I have won a hero's name with McAlpine and Costain With Fitzpatrick, Murphy, Ashe and Wimpey's gang I've been often on the road, on my way to draw the dole When there's nothing left to do for Johnny Laing And I used to think that God made the mixer pick and hod So that Paddy might know hell above the ground I've had gangers big and tough tell me tear it all out rough When you're building up and tеaring England down I remember Carriеr Jack he wore a hod upon his back And he swore he'd one day set the world on fire His face we've never seen since his shovel it cut clean Through the middle of a big high tension wire And I saw auld Balls McCaul, from the big flyover fall Into a concrete mixer spinning round Though it was not his intent, he got a fine head of cement When he was building up and tearing England down I was on the hydro dam ah the day that Pat McCann Got the better of his stammer in a week He fell from the shuttering jam and that poor auld stuttering man He was never ever more inclined to speak And no more like Robin Hood will he roam through Cricklewood Or dance around the pubs of Camden Town Ah let no man complain, that no navvy dies in vain When he's building up and tearing England down In a tunnel underground a young Limerick man was found He was built into the new Victoria Line When the bonus gang had past, sticking through the concrete cast Was the face of little Charlie Joe Devine And the ganger man McGurk said big Paddy hates the work When the gas pipe burst and he flew off the ground Oh they swear he said "Don't slack, I'll not be there until I'm back Keep on building up and tearing England down" So come you navvies bold, who do think that English gold Is just waiting to be plucked from every sod Or that the likes of you and me will ever get an OBE Or a knighthood for good service to the hod They've a concrete master race, there to keep you in your place And a ganger man to kick you to the ground If you ever try to take part of what the bosses make When you're building up and tearing England down
