Les Corons

I'm trying to get back to normal posting but the steamy weather has been an impediment. I hope everyone is either on vacation or at least relaxing. Soon it will be back to the salt mines. Speaking of mines…

A reader sent this wonderful video of a singing group called Les Stentors. The song is Les Corons, composed in 1982 by Pierre Bachelet. I have provided a translation into English. In French a "coron" is a working class dwelling, in this case for miners. According to Wikipedia, this type of community was common in Western Europe during the Industrial Revolution. The "coron" was often a street of row houses, as opposed to individual or semi-detached dwellings. While the living conditions in these houses may seem rudimentary to us, they nonetheless represented at the time an improvement in terms of hygiene because of access to a bathroom instead of a common toilet. Some of these dwellings today are sought after and are being restored.

The "corons" were in the North

The Earth was coal

The sky was the horizon

The men were miners

Our windows looked out onto other windows

And the rain soaked my school bag

But when he came home my father's eyes were so blue

That I thought I was seeing the blue sky

I did my lessons with my cheek against his arm

I think he was proud of me

He was generous like the people of the region

And I owe what I am to him

The "corons" were in the North...

And my childhood was happy

In the steam of the wash boilers

And I had slag instead of mountains

From above I could se the countryside

My father had a black face as did his parents

My mother had white hair

For them the pit was their homeland

Thanks to them I know who I am

The "corons" were in the North...

There was City Hall on festival days

A photo of Jean Jaurès

And every glass of wine was a rose-colored diamond on a backdrop of silicosis (a lung disease)

They spoke of '36 and the methane explosions

Accidents deep in the hole

They loved their job as one loves one's homeland

It was with them that I understood

The "corons" were in the North...

Below, a "coron" belonging to the Sessevalle mine in Somain in the region Nord-Pas-de-Calais. The houses look rather large, and the cobblestone street and church add to the charm of the image, even though the life those workers led was anything but charming. But the world of miners has achieved an almost legendary status thanks to movies such as How Green Was My Valley and Emile Zola's Germinal.