I think it's about the working class people who spend their whole lives doing long shifts of repetitive labour. "His head did no thinking" suggests to me that this is someone who knows they are capable of a better job than the one they are doing, but can't seem to find one. "His arms didn't move except when the wind cut up." This raises some questions. How can you be a labourer if your arms don't move? It's a metaphor for the frustration of a dead end job. You feel like your life isn't moving. You don't feel like you're making progress, merely scraping by.
"Life's not unkind, he doesn't mind" sums up the class system in Britain at the time. Generations of working class people did the same job that they didn't really like, sometimes for their whole lives. But it put food on the table, so it was enough.
I think it's about the working class people who spend their whole lives doing long shifts of repetitive labour. "His head did no thinking" suggests to me that this is someone who knows they are capable of a better job than the one they are doing, but can't seem to find one. "His arms didn't move except when the wind cut up." This raises some questions. How can you be a labourer if your arms don't move? It's a metaphor for the frustration of a dead end job. You feel like your life isn't moving. You don't feel like you're making progress, merely scraping by. "Life's not unkind, he doesn't mind" sums up the class system in Britain at the time. Generations of working class people did the same job that they didn't really like, sometimes for their whole lives. But it put food on the table, so it was enough.