Industry born on a larger scale, once rose amid the rolling moors.
Grand designs of brick and glass and skyward fingers of chimney stacks
forged a landscape of mills and hills from the minds of men, never still .
Dreams drawn out on a spinning mule, fuelled by coal and driven by steam
wound a million lives round a cotton spool and made this Britain Great,
long before our Gracie wished us luck as she waved us goodbye.
Now Gracie’s voice is quiet at last and memories live in the grace that’s left
Though the mills now stilled nestle mid the hills, the minds of men dreaming still
covet heritage lest it should be lost from beloved remains of muck and brass.
The harnessed power of dragon’s breath, once doused now awake to roar again
gasping steam up to an industrial sky, pistons shush and the great wheel flies