Among several contenders, Alan Price's version of Tommy Armstrong's Trimdon Grange Explosion is just about my favourite. The jazzy arrangement is a matter of taste but I feel Price's own experience of workplace tragedy - his dad was killed in a blast at a British Oxygen plant - adds personal resonance.

A friend in Toronto added this comment on another Price interpretation: '.. . though I don't think it's been recorded, he was capable of a very different and spinechillingly beautiful rendition.

"I saw him do this to close a solo concert at Avery Fisher Hall (now renamed David Geffen Hall) in New York in the mid 1970s. He got up from the piano, thanked the audience, told them he was really missing his home and then delivered The Trimdon Grange Explosion acapella. Brought the house down. Far and away the best version I've ever heard.'