I've started doing some research for my latest project. Does anyone have any memories of the strike by the steelworkers?

yes we started taking strike action on 13/8 /79, (private section ) my youngest son was born on the first day of the strike . hard times

My dad was a steelworker during the strike but getting any facts out of him is like trawling through treacle, :help:

Give me the lowdown on what happened and how it affected everyone :D

Me & my brother had a garage at Chapeltown ,the old Arrow Service Station & when the steel strike was on,we could not get hold of certain car body panels,I totally agree that the steelworkers were shafted in this country,we had the best steel works in the world.

My mum says they didn't know the union could help out with food etc and they had to sell all their valuables just to keep a roof over our heads. :(

yes people were selling things to get by, something you had paid £25 for you,d sell for a fiver.i had a young family we really struggled. ps can anyone remember the badges that were about at the time. melt the iron lady, one more cut thatchers throat

yes people were selling things to get by, something you had paid £25 for you,d sell for a fiver.i had a young family we really struggled. ps can anyone remember the badges that were about at the time. melt the iron lady, one more cut thatchers throat
sorry o/t but
i helped out a few times with the keatons strikers

Yes I remember the Steel Strike, I had been saving up to put a deposit on a house. Then we went on strike for Thirteen Week. At the end of it all the money had gone and I was up to my neck in debt. During the strike we had people from Wiggy's, Dixon's e.t.c. banging on the door demanding payment for this that and the other. It was hard telling the kid's they could not have stuff they wanted, Took me year's to recover. Would I do it all again? NO EFFIN CHANCE.

my mam & dad & other family members helped us out a lot but like pitsmoorboy says, would i do it again ..no effin chance

I have read Stuart Dalton's book "Crashing Steel", dealing with the decline and fall of steel making in Sheffield. Does anyone know of any other books on this subject, which would include other details of the strike?

I left Sheffield in 1974: before things a really took a turn for the worst.

Regards

This is what my mum remembers: :(

The steel strike. Oh My God. What can I say? We just tried to keep you all fed and pay the rent. We didn’t realise we could get help from the union so never asked. I sold everything I had of any value and your dad even sold his wedding ring so you could go on a pre arranged trop to London. Your grandma bought you some shoes to go in.

Looking back I don’t know how we kept it together. More than one poor man topped himself because he’d reached the end of the tether. I don’t remember much because it was just a blur but we hung on by a thread with the help of our mums. I went to work in a pub which I hated but it brought enough in to put a meal on the table.

My dad worked at the British Steel river don works in the south planner tool room in 1979.

He went on strike for 13 weeks at the end of September 1979, this was due to Bill Sirs ( leader of the steelmakers union ) asking them to come out, this was down to pay and condition, they asked for 20% productivity increase and a basic increase of 6%.

What they got was was just a 6% basic increase, there was no 20% productivity increase because Mrs Thacher moved most of the British Steel orders abroad and closed some of the steelworks down in Wales, this ment that the productivity of 20% could not be achieved.

Dad had to get his strike pay from the Social Security office in a church hall on Attercliffe Common near Amberley Street but he does not know how much it was per week

i was working for a small strip mill at the time , one of the major stockholdres set up a swaps system .people would phone in with their needs and what surplus stock they had . quite a few companies got rid of their old surplus stock so the strike did n't really effect them

my dad spent the time boarding the loft out .....

he worked in 'the offices' at the bottom of netherthorpe way

I was an apprentice in the steel works at the time and because I was under age wasn't allowed to strike. We got paid and so my (meagre by todays standards) wage of four pounds 2/6 helped to keep our house going as my dad was on strike too.

I was also an appentice and we had to work, gave 25% of our wages to the union

fookin ian mcgreger and shxthouse thacher my dad was on strike first the seelworks then the miners cxxnts

I've started doing some research for my latest project. Does anyone have any memories of the strike by the steelworkers?


The ISTC printed a brochure - a sort of souvenir as a momento of the strike, my dad had a copy but I haven't seen it for years. Grim old days.Whoever would have thought everything apart from River Don Works (Forgemasters) and SMACC (just about) would have closed down.Very sad.Criminal.