What happened to Thatcher's Miners?

[newcomer01 10]

And the Conservatives also lied through their teeth to do it.

 

I remember Scargill (I'm not a fan) saying he had got hold of a list of the 90+ pits that were going to close, and Thatcher standing up in parliament calling him a liar and other choice names and totally denying it.

 

The night Arthur made that quote was on a Sunday night at the Sheffield City Hall .Eric Heffer ,Dennis Skinner was also there as I recall.How the newspapers collectively scored points by decrying Arthur and the "Loony Left" .

 

This was one of my first attempts to find out more about socialism and politics.

I quickly concluded that the press could not be trusted as they denied everything that I had heard that night.That has put me in good stead since,and so another cynic was created.

[mickey finn 12]

I blame that cow for the state this country is in now. I find it hard to believe how hard nosed she was in destroying the country she clailmed to love. She didn't know the meaning of the word love

 

Someone like you would

[Onthetyne 10]

I know one who went on to work for a top fashion magazine and bunch went into IT support. One became a newsagent.

 

Some former pit villages have kicked on - others really seem to wallow in their situation.

 

Yes i see that with a lot of places. look at New bolsover!, clowne!

[Penistone999 10]

I've just heard on the news that the steelworks are under threat and facing redundancies very soon.

 

It made me wonder what happened to all those miners when Thatcher closed the mines. Did they move from their communities to get work elsewhere, did they just languish on sick benefit, which the job centre encouraged them to do, or did they set up enterprising businesses?

 

They can still be found in those same communities still harking back over 30 years and whinging about how those nasty Tories are to blame for them not working since .

 

---------- Post added 28-09-2015 at 22:27 ----------

 

I blame that cow for the state this country is in now. I find it hard to believe how hard nosed she was in destroying the country she clailmed to love. She didn't know the meaning of the word love

 

Scargill got too big for his boots and made the fatal error of thinking he could beat The Iron Lady ............. bad mistake. He put his members on the dole by thinking he was more powerful than the Government. He had to be crushed ,and duly was.

 

You cannot have Unions who think they can take on the Government and hold them to ransom . Scargill thought that , and soon realized he was way out of his depth.

[Anna B 1,417]

They can still be found in those same communities still harking back over 30 years and whinging about how those nasty Tories are to blame for them not working since .

 

---------- Post added 28-09-2015 at 22:27 ----------

 

 

Scargill got too big for his boots and made the fatal error of thinking he could beat The Iron Lady ............. bad mistake. He put his members on the dole by thinking he was more powerful than the Government. He had to be crushed ,and duly was.

 

You cannot have Unions who think they can take on the Government and hold them to ransom . Scargill thought that , and soon realized he was way out of his depth.

 

Really? It was Thatcher who closed the pits, not Scargill.

[pacman123 10]

All three. Some made it, some didn't.

 

The one's that did make it often went on to a much better life. And good luck to them. Who would really want to work down a coal mine? But those that didn't have never recovered.

 

To launch thousands and thousands of men onto the jobs market at the same time meant that many were not going to get jobs. These were big, strong, hardworking men and proud, but that sort of strength and endurance was no longer needed in the jobs market, so it was not easy to get decent jobs of equal or better status. They were like dinosaurs.

 

Many more missed the camaraderie and community of their old life. Mining was the lifeblood of whole communities, there was often nothing else in the area, and everything depended on it. Some were able to move away, some were able to retrain, especially the younger ones, some took their redundancy money and made good with it. But the ones left behind, often the older, more inflexible and less educated, and with health wrecked, were angry and bitter.

 

This was the beginning of the underclass we see today, still bitter and depending on a life on benefits.

 

Good post Anna I lived and still do on an old mining estate where I could put a name to 99% of the people living there, now i'm lucky if I can name half a dozen...

[Vague_Boy 10]

Scargill got too big for his boots and made the fatal error of thinking he could beat The Iron Lady

 

Mrs Thatcher was part of the cabinet that had to meet by candlelight in 1972 due to power cuts caused by the miners being on strike.

 

The Heath government of which she was a part was arguably severely damaged by the 1972 strike and the "3 day week" and rotating power cuts of late 1973, this time caused by the miners working to rule.

 

I would guess that this sort of humiliating downfall for a Conservative government, of which she was a prominent part, would not sit well with Mrs Thatcher and that (once she was PM) she would take steps to make sure that it wouldn't happen again.

 

Mrs Thatcher's first term in office didn't see her in a particularly strong position, at least until April of 1982. With the Falklands war her popularity was transformed and she won re-election with a landslide in 1983.

 

At this point she was in a position to take on the miners, still one of the strongest Trade Union forces in the country. She set a trap for Arthur Scargill and he dutifully walked into it.

 

Unlike the early 70s, she made sure that stockpiles of coal were kept high. Likewise the conflict kicked off at the end of winter, with spring, summer and autumn ahead, the periods of lowest demand. Mrs Thatcher had learned her lessons well.

 

Now if Arthur Scargill had allowed the miners a free ballot on a national strike, the divisions within the union (Derbys and Notts miners) might not have occurred.

 

With the miners split and stockpiles of coal high, the miners didn't stand much of a chance.

 

Arguably this was the high-water mark of union influence in British society. And Mrs Thatcher's biggest ally was Arthur Scargill himself.

 

He thought it would be like going up against Ted Heath. How wrong he was.

[newcomer01 10]

It seems to me that certain SF subscribers can only distort history because they were not part of it or cannot read about it correctly.

 

I would like to know how the rampant inflation affected some SF subscribers in the 70`s,as this was not caused by the miners as their wage increase were capped by the then governement of Heath.Here in the early 1970`s is where the demise of the coal industry started and the the demise of Trade Unionism and society to where it is now.

 

(QUOTE)They can still be found in those same communities still harking back over 30 years and whinging about how those nasty Tories are to blame for them not working since .

This quote is an absolute disgrace,and making it make you certainly live up to the first part of your username.I am not sure why History has to be sdistorted to try and make a political point.

It seems to me,you like others live up to the famous saying of Randolph Hearst,"Why let the truth get in the way of a good story"

[drummonds 10]

Really? It was Thatcher who closed the pits, not Scargill.

 

i always thought it was economics. just what would we do with coal that we couldn't use, was too poluting to burn and was too expensive to sell?

 

perhaps the railways should have gone back to steam.

[Obelix 11]

Really? It was Thatcher who closed the pits, not Scargill.

 

MacGregor actually...

 

However it was also the miners that closed the pits. If they had had a legal ballot - if they had permitted NACODS and safey people to keep them maintained, then they would probably have had a decent industry to come back to. As it was a lot of the collieries closed for safety reasons, not exhaustion or unprofitability.

[geared 320]

i always thought it was economics. just what would we do with coal that we couldn't use, was too poluting to burn and was too expensive to sell?

 

It wasn't any one person/Government closing the mines - they had been shutting for years before and were shutting for years after.

 

Thatcher actually didn't close as many mines as other governments had, but she's been forever linked with it as she was the one who destroyed the union.

[Anna B 1,417]

Mrs Thatcher was part of the cabinet that had to meet by candlelight in 1972 due to power cuts caused by the miners being on strike.

 

The Heath government of which she was a part was arguably severely damaged by the 1972 strike and the "3 day week" and rotating power cuts of late 1973, this time caused by the miners working to rule.

 

I would guess that this sort of humiliating downfall for a Conservative government, of which she was a prominent part, would not sit well with Mrs Thatcher and that (once she was PM) she would take steps to make sure that it wouldn't happen again.

 

Mrs Thatcher's first term in office didn't see her in a particularly strong position, at least until April of 1982. With the Falklands war her popularity was transformed and she won re-election with a landslide in 1983.

 

At this point she was in a position to take on the miners, still one of the strongest Trade Union forces in the country. She set a trap for Arthur Scargill and he dutifully walked into it.

 

Unlike the early 70s, she made sure that stockpiles of coal were kept high. Likewise the conflict kicked off at the end of winter, with spring, summer and autumn ahead, the periods of lowest demand. Mrs Thatcher had learned her lessons well.

 

Now if Arthur Scargill had allowed the miners a free ballot on a national strike, the divisions within the union (Derbys and Notts miners) might not have occurred.

 

With the miners split and stockpiles of coal high, the miners didn't stand much of a chance.

 

Arguably this was the high-water mark of union influence in British society. And Mrs Thatcher's biggest ally was Arthur Scargill himself.

 

He thought it would be like going up against Ted Heath. How wrong he was.

 

Much as I dislike A. Scargill, he fought hard for a better deal for the miners who did a hard, dangerous and very necessary job. Considering the resultant loss of a whole industry, communities, workers et al and the cost of the burgeoning underclass it created; not to mention the rising price of imported coal in subsequent years, it might have been money well spent to support and subsidise the coal industry.

 

It's interesting to note that many of those on here who seem to think it's OK for greedy bosses to be on £megamillions while paying their workforce peanuts, and regularly hold us to ransom by to threatening to 'leave the country' every time they are expected to pay their fair share of tax, would condemn the miners simply for wanting a decent living wage.