In the shadow of the Great Strike of Penrhyn

Cold on the picket line
no brazier to keep hands warm
though students offer cups of tea

paying twice over.
We smile at colleagues driving in to work
apologetic

almost,
the word scab somehow too violent
too quite what—real?

And when lights go on and someone lectures
to a half empty room
is that murmuring

just the way the wind blows
or the ghosts of those who saved tuppence
and thruppence to build this university

and for whom tuppence,
thruppence became fortune—
enough to keep a family off Traitors’ Row.

Published in Gwrthryfel / Uprising, Culture Matters, 2022