Your Memories of the Miner's Strike

[DerbyTup 10]

My Dad and brother were both NCB workers, my Dad hated Arthur Scargill but my brother was a follower of him. It caused a lot of upset in our house, and when the strike was over, as Arthur said, most pits were closed and my brother lost his job. My Dad was an engineer and near retirement so he wasn't affected as much. I lived in Eckington, and it ripped the heart out of that community.

 

Also lived in Eckington, also the son of a coal miner. Although our old fella had retired, crippled from years of working in the mine, by the time of this strike.

 

He had no time for Scargill anyhow and was not a bloke to miss a day's work for any reason - so he wouldn't have wanted to go on strike.

 

Eckington of course used to have its own mine at one time - but many of the miners were bussed to other mines around the area. When those mines closed it did have a very negative effect on those communities and even today you can still notice the impact of it.

 

My memories of the miner's strike was seeing miners bussed to work in specially hired coaches which had the windows covered in mesh and in some cases the coach companies even had their company name painted over in order to prevent repurcussions. The buses were not full of miners like the normal pit buses used to be - but usually just a handful of miners, not keen to show their faces at the bus window for fear of reprisals.

 

I remember also hearing about striking miners dropping concrete posts off a bridge onto vehicles that were taking miners to work. I think there was an incident not far from Eckington where someone got badly injured or killed as a result.

 

I remember one of the newspapers describing the miners as "lions led by donkeys" - and that stuck with me eversince.

 

The miners were generally salt of the earth folk who were mislead by more than one party, including Scargill. They had an expectation that work would always be there, on their doorstep, and when that changed it ruined many, many lives.

[xenia 11]

Straightforward opinions have been voiced about the rights and wrongs of this issue. I support what Thatcher did. However I cannot understand why clean coal technology has not been introduced. The NUM under Scargill were a political force determined to undermine the democratic process.They were the shock troops of the union movement, they had to be beaten.

[alex3659 11]

Thatcher was right. Scargill was using the miners for his own political reasons. He was funded by Gaddafi and the Russians.

 

Th pits were churning out coal that no one wanted. Pits were uneconomical, why should they be subsidised?

 

If no one wanted the coal why did we import coal from other countries?.

The stockpiles of coal built up By the Thatcher government were to prevent power cuts in the strike Thatcher was planning in revenge against the miners.

[willo 10]

Straightforward opinions have been voiced about the rights and wrongs of this issue. I support what Thatcher did. However I cannot understand why clean coal technology has not been introduced. The NUM under Scargill were a political force determined to undermine the democratic process.They were the shock troops of the union movement, they had to be beaten.

 

please read this--http://www.socialismtoday.org/81/miners.html

[rightlass 10]

I can remember police stopping cars at Atco traffic lights in Eckington, to check if any picketers were on board.

Edited October 27, 2011 by rightlass

[chrishall 10]

Scargill made the mistake of announcing he would bring down the Establishment, a declaration of war that the powers that be took seriously and made preparations, but he underestimated the power and guile of the Establishment who proceeded to take away his power base which was the coal industry. They were able to do this because of North Sea oil and gas plus an organised police force and a compliant press at their disposal. Predictable outcome really, whether you agree with Scargill or not he wasn't a good enough commander of his troops to ensure victory.

 

As to why coal isn't widely used now is probably down to the fact that Scargill is President of the NUM for life and can't be voted out (as I understand it) so when he has departed this mortal coil the way will be open to build a new more efficient coal industry without too much interference.

 

That's my view on it anyway.

Edited October 27, 2011 by chrishall

[cuttsie 1,091]

Scargill made the mistake of announcing he would bring down the Establishment, a declaration of war that the powers that be took seriously and made preparations, but he underestimated the power and guile of the Establishment who proceeded to take away his power base which was the coal industry. They were able to do this because of North Sea oil and gas plus an organised police force and a compliant press at their disposal. Predictable outcome really, whether you agree with Scargill or not he wasn't a good enough commander of his troops to ensure victory.

 

As to why coal isn't widely used now is probably down to the fact that Scargill is President of the NUM for life and can't be voted out (as I understand it) so when he has departed this mortal coil the way will be open to build a new more efficient coal industry without too much interference.

 

That's my view on it anyway.

Arther Scargill is a spent force who made sure that whatever happened he would be O.K. He is probably a very wealthy man and no different from our ex Sheffield gang of councillors who entered Parliament as socialists but somewhere along the way forgot there roots and made sure that they ended up laughing all the way to the bank.

[911wasalie 10]

If no one wanted the coal why did we import coal from other countries?.

The stockpiles of coal built up By the Thatcher government were to prevent power cuts in the strike Thatcher was planning in revenge against the miners.

 

Exactly so, Thatcher learned a lesson from the Ted Heath lot by stockpiling coal then challenging the miners, Scargill should have kept his mouth shut and made Thatcher make the first move. Hindsight, not at all it was obvious at the time.

[old tup 30]

When the miners strike was on we lived at Aston,we used to frequent The Bluebell which was used by the plod who were barracked at Aston Hall.They were all hand picked thugs from the Met,a more arrogant crew you could never meet,loud mouthed ignorant and relishing every minute of their task which they conveyed to one and all.I witnessed one of them sit himself down inbetween a man and his wife and commenced to chat her up as though the husband wasn,t there!.It got so bad in the pub the landlady summoned the head man to the bar and told him if their behaviour didn,t stop they were all barred,it did the trick but you could still feel a bad atmosphere every time they showed up.I,ve got no opinions one way or the other about the strike but that lot were a disgrace to the police force!.:rant:

Edited October 29, 2011 by old tup
spelling error

[denlin 12]

That old bat Thatcher didn't have much courage of her convictions. I was in demonstration outside Cathedral in town when she came to Cutlers feast. She sneaked in through back door just like when she stole the milk from the children. Hope she is proud of what she did to the working people of this country because we are now reaping the whirlwind.:rant:

[cuttsie 1,091]

That old bat Thatcher didn't have much courage of her convictions. I was in demonstration outside Cathedral in town when she came to Cutlers feast. She sneaked in through back door just like when she stole the milk from the children. Hope she is proud of what she did to the working people of this country because we are now reaping the whirlwind.:rant:

The problem is that it is the working class and unemployed who are suffering not her , not Cambell or Clegg or the financiers,Bankers, Money Lenders or the rest of the i,m all right Jack ruling class, It is as per usual the poorest and least fortunate of society lets hope that one day the tables will turn!.

[charliewag 19]

i worked for a company making equipment for the ncb. when the strike started orders dropped off so i ended up on a 3 day week. on our days off a few of us went fishing until the police started turning us back. that was when we joined the picket lines at orgreave.

i wasn't a fan of scargill but the behaviour of thatchers stormtroopers disgusted me.