There Were Some Strange And Wonderful Characters At Orgreave Coke Ovens

[Downsunder 10]

One in particular, a tall swarthy man whose complexion suggested either Romany or ingrained coal dust. He was an introvert, a communist and a loner who spent most of the day muttering to himself. He always wore a Lenin-style peaked cap which had written on the white band in childish block letters : MACHINE NOT THE MAN - KARL MARKS. A mis-quote from the mis-spelt founder of modern socialism. One day, high in a dark concrete tower at Orgreave (sounds like a fairy tale) I came across a message written in chalk in large letters filling the entire wall. It wasn't a poem, more like a manifesto, strange words and phrases making little sense but having a profound impact on me. Today, fifty years later I can't recall a single word of what I read but I knew who wrote it and I only wish I had copied it down. I'm certain a tee shirt print would have outsold Che Guevara and made me a rich man.

[Downsunder 10]

Little Ernie Harris was an operator in the crusher house, I never saw anyone else doing the job he did but I guess there must have been others. The crusher house at Orgreave was hell on earth.  Coal arrived from the pit in wagons, the crushers reduced it to a coarse black gravel which was fed into the ovens to make coke for the blast furnaces. The huge grey concrete bunker had no door, just an opening where daylight stopped. Inside, everything was black; the motors, the crushers, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the space between them all, even the air that filled the space was black. Lights shone from above like ships lanterns lost in a thick fog. The noise from the crushers made spoken conversation impossible. One tiny corner was sectioned off with glass panels barely big enough to fit in a table and two chairs. This was where little Ernie Harris had his snap, in his eight hour shift he left the crusher house only once to take the short walk to the toilet during his half hour break. Ernie never wore a mask, goggles, earplugs, gloves or a hat, just overalls which were once blue but now as black as his boots. The only thing which glowed white in the whole place were Ernie Harris' eyes. And his teeth, for you never saw Ernie without a smile.