Long, lank, and lean as any post, with skinny arms and hands -
Six feet of grimy flesh and blood, the knowing fireman stands;
Large-nosed, fair-featured, curling locks, small ears, and rounded chin,
A narrow forehead, lantern jaws, with hollow cheeks and thin,
Mouth sensitive, with shapely lips stained with the weed and dyed,
Long neck, a brown and withered face, deep-wrinkled, artful-eyed,
Blackened and blistered with the heat, and grimy with the soil -
The very feature of his trade, a sturdy son of toil.
Day after day he's in his place, and every hour the same,
Bare-headed, naked to the waist, before the furnace flame,
His wiper at this middle hung, with little art or pride,
Or, serpent-like, about his wrist, or dangling at his side,
To brush the perspiration off that, like a river, flows
Out of the hollows of his cheeks, or trickles down his nose.
He's always busy with the rake, the shovel, or the bar;
He'll work the flaming furnace up as radiant as a star;
He likes to feel the twingeing heat strike through the open door,
And watch the yellow mass expand, and hear the furnace roar;
His merry eyes will cast about and twinkle with delight,
For then he knows the heat is safe, that everything is right.

First by the rattling, clinking crane the heavy ingot's brought,
The iron door is hoisted up as quick as any thought,
A dozen ready hands are near the ponderous mass to guide,
And shove it through the open rift to the hollow place inside;
Down goes the heavy door again, and shuts the ingot in,
The curling flames have wrapped it round, the steady toils begin.
Forthwith the black and gleaming dust is gathered from the floor,
To stop each little gaping clink, and lay along the door,
That no cold draught may enter in and strike a sudden chill
Into the centre of the mass - the iron or the steel.
Now by the fireman's ready hand the furnace bar is plied,
Careful he thrusts the pointer in and stirs the coals inside,
Now, with the ravel's useful aid, levels the fuel down,
A little sloping to the rear, and well below the crown;
Raises the heavy damper up, a couple of points, or so,
And breaks the solid clinker in the fire-box down below;
Admits the vapour underneath straight through the hollow pile,
And fires the yellow furnace up in true Vulcanic style.
From time to time the forger's mates invoke the rattling crane,
And turn the livid metal round, and lower it again,
Till, by-and-by, the solid mass is heated through and through,
And dazzling as the noon-day sun, and fit to take the blow.
Down goes the damper overhead, the heat's allowed to soak,
To somewhat chill the outer part, and fit it for the stroke;
Now presently the door is raised, the creaking crane's applied,
Out comes the spluttering, hissing mass, and lightens far and wide,
The ponderous hammer gathers strength and travels to and fro,
Until the deep foundations quake and shiver with the blow;
Another and another heat's supplied; day after day
The fireman's steady toil proceeds - he sweats his life away.

It gives us a clear description of the actual work that Alfred did in Swindon Railway Works and underlines how much preparation of the metal was required before the final, very brief action of the bringing down of the steam hammer completed the operation. So although famous as a 'hammerman', here he leaves us in no doubt that experience, timing and skill were every bit a part of his work as was the physical exertion.

As well as being a beautifully crafted poem, it also gives us an insight into his life.

The two sheets on which the poem are written (pictured below) are part of the extensive collection of material relating to Alfred Williams's life which is now held at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, but we cannot be sure of its date.

The best clue is the fact that it has been typed, and we know that Alfred did not acquire a typewriter of his own until 1926, so the crucial question is: was Alfred the typist? The two sheets both contain basic spacing errors, which suggests it was his own typing and not the work of the professional that he employed while preparing his poems for publication. This would confirm 1926 as the earliest possible date.

Assuming this is correct, the poem is interesting firstly because it demonstrates that Alfred was still writing poetry in this latter stage of his life, and at least a year after what would turn out to be his final book of poetry, Selected Poems, was published. Either he still had confidence in his ability to put together and sell a new book of poetry or he was simply writing for his own enjoyment.

It also shows that he was still willing to bring to mind his experience of working at the Great Western Railway's Swindon Works, which he had left more than a decade earlier. It is always assumed that he ended his 24 years of employment on bad terms or at least with much relief, but the apparent affection that he shows here suggests he has real admiration for the spectacle of the furnace in operation. This echoes his observations as they were related in the prose of Life in a Railway Factory, where he was always at pains to accurately record the impressiveness and even the majesty of heavy duty industrial processes to the observer.

The poem may be considered a development of a much earlier and shorter poem, The Oil Furnace, which appeared in his 1911 book, Poems in Wiltshire, which Alfred originally wrote in Latin. There are also clear similarities with The Forgers, which appeared in Nature and Other Poems, published in 1912.

He entered the works, aged 14, in 1891 as a 'rivet hotter' and although his official job title at this time was 'frame builder's boy', he was more commonly called a 'furnace boy'. So not only did his experience of the furnace go back many years before the date of the poem, but it is easy to see the effect it would have had on him.

The opening sequence of the poem demonstrates one aspect of the experience which clearly made an impression - the relative foreignness of the men who worked there. Throughout its existence, Swindon Works relied on attracting skilled workers from all corners of Britain, and this cosmopolitan workforce with their different cultures and sometimes unfathomable accents cannot fail to have made an impression on a young boy more used to the close-knit predictability of rustic village life.

The lean but imposing physical appearance of the furnacemen is also highlighted, in the second verse - and although he would have become accustomed to this in later years, first impressions clearly stayed with him into adulthood and deep into later life.

It's not really until the final line that Alfred's admiration for the scene turns to anything like regret, as he finishes by noting that for all the toil of the furnacemen in the poem - not to mention his own - is all in vain as "he sweats his life away".

By Graham Carter