miners may they rest in peace

[London Calling]

Did you support the mIners in 84/5 or were they the enemy within.

191,000 miners worked in 84 and there is less than 5,000 working now.

I did from beginning to the end.

I stood on Picket lines in Nottinghamshire,

and worked afterwards, to stop collieries being closed.

Lots of my friends lost their jobs, the last working miner I know took redundancy recently.

In 1984 we had the cheapest deep mined coal in the world.

In 2005 we are now proud to have the cheapest coal in the world.

What was it for?

LC

 

[Race]

I just watched that on BBC 1 , it was good. I was only 14 when all that went on so didnt really know too much about it.

 

[London Irish]

I am proud to say as a young teenager I collected for them outside my local supermarkets and regularly went along to the local support group in north London to meet the Kent miners. It was very sad week by week chatting to them and watching them gradually realise that the odds they had taken on were too much. The Kent boys were among the first to get wiped out after they starved them back to work.

Didn't see the docudrama tonight but I bet it was pretty stirring stuff.

 

[Emily's Mum]

I've just watched it too. Having spent the last 17 years living in a pit village, I think the programme was realistic . I supported the miners during the strike, but when I moved to Barnsley I was accused of being a tory & taking away their jobs, simply because of the way I spoke. I soon put them right!

 

[NMH]

I left the country, while working for our British Government, because thatcher was out to crush the unions. My industry was hamstrung for the next year, going down to a 3day week before the unions caved in, and privatization took place.

I have full sympathy for those in the middle, the working men and women of Britain, who got screwed whatever they did.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Many memories of that time. Including meeting Kent miners on a picket line at Shoreham Power Station and using what clout I had as a branch officer in the East Sussex branch of NALGO to get the (Tory) County Council to abandon its deliveries of recycled fuel pellets to Shoreham, which was using them as an alternative to coal. "We'll stop deliveries, but don't tell anyone" was the ESCC line.

I have a copy of the The Miners' Strike 1984-85 In Pictures, published by The News Line, signed "Best Wishes - Arthur Scargill", which I bought from Ann Scargill at a Barnsley Miners' Wives stall after the strike came to an end.

 

[clapham_gull]

Funny thing I remember about the miners strike is playing Barnsley away. I wasn't very old but our dad had decided in a mad moment to take us up there to watch the Albion.

I'm sure we lost.

I remember my dad talking to some miners who were pissed off with Scargill at that point, because they claimed he had moved into a hotel to direct the strike and they were wondering how much it would cost the union.

( I honestly can't remember whether this was after or during the strike )

What I do remember is watching the television pictures of the Police hitting the miners with their batons. At a young age. this influenced my view of the police for many years to come.

By the way, the witty Brighton fans chant from the game was...

Donkey Jacket...

Donkey Jacket...

So Casual.....

So Casual.....

 

[attila]

I stood on the picket lines at Shoreham and various other places too, and did about 20 miners' benefit gigs gigs up and down the country.

First the miners, then the printers, then the dockers, now it's our football clubs.
But as long as the majority decides, as is their democratic right, that the economic system of capitalism is the one they want to live under, we can expect nothing different.

Thatcher, Murdoch, Archer, Hamilton, Abramovich are all cut from the same cloth. If you buy the system, you take the whole package. Occasionally we will win, or at least survive (as we did) by sheer force of numbers and effort....but it is no accident that the final battles with Archer took place in the Centre for Dispute Resolution of the Confederation of British Industry, and that the final victory was achieved by Archer giving up his shares. Nor is it anything other than inevitable that Blatter 'deplores' the Glazer takeover but says that FIFA is 'powerless' to do anything about it.

The Right will say that history says the alternative is worse, and they'd rather see
ordinary people's lives ruined and our clubs destroyed by asset strippers and profiteers than live in a grey police state where you can't say what you think.

I reckon there is an alternative to both, and am going to carry on trying to find it!

 

[Brovion]

The band I was in at the time did a couple of benefit gigs for miners and we also played at the Corn Exchange for the TUC conference which was in Brighton that year. They picked us because we were the only band in the area who were all M.U. members! Talked to Mick Magahey (sp) afterwards who was brilliant. Scargill wasn't there as he'd gone to a cocktail party at the Metropole! I also joined the pickets at Wapping the following year.

Not much compared to what some did but I knew which side I was on. 'Enemy within' and proud of it!

 

[larus]

Sorry to be a bit anti here, but I remember the power strikes of the Heath government, and I believe that the miners brought it all on themselves. A trade union shouldn't be holding the country to ransom which is what it was about.

Trade unions had themselves to blame for the kneejerk reaction of the ligislation imposed by the Thatcher governement. They went beyond their purpose of protecting workers rights, to trying to exert political influence for the wrong reasons.

When the unions had so much power, we were the sick man of Europe; yes, it's easy to romanticise the 'struggle' against the government, but look how much better off as a country we are since sensible working relations have been adopted by all parties.

The trade unions were responsible for the deatch of our car industry, always going out on strike over trivial matters.

So, sorry, I have no sympathy for them and do not agree with the romantic view of a struggle against a power-crazed leader. She was, IMO, just what was needed by this country at that time. I'm not saying she didn't make mistakes, but she dragged the country forward,. If what she did was so bad, why is nearly all of the trade union legislation that she introduced still on the statute books?

 

[Yorkie]

I had a lot of sympathy for the miners (and the steelworkers who faced exactly the same problems just not as publicised)
We did food parcels for them in the churches.

I did not have any sympathy for Arthur Scargill and I think he damaged the cause of the miners rather than helped them.

 

[Tooting Gull]

For once, on matters political, I agree with Yorkie! You get phrases that capture a moment in history, and 'Lions led by donkeys' is one that will live on in relation to that dispute.

I was completely on the side of the miners and against the government at the time - but Scargill was stupid, and made some terrible misjudgments about Thatcher's strategy and staying power which cost his members dear, and left a lasting split in so many communities the remnants of which are still there today.

 

[brunswick]

they where all losing money, coal is a bad energy! but hey, lets keep them all open because some whole communities keep them as the centre of their unity.

pah!

move with the times NORTHERNERS.


Call centres get closed down to move away for cost and becasue communities arent silly enough to base emselves around a call centre, there isnt mass hysteria.

Scargill.....socialist prick.


queue mass angry flamers: do ya best:

 

[Saint Lennard]

I had a lot of sympathy for the miners (and the steelworkers who faced exactly the same problems just not as publicised)
We did food parcels for them in the churches.

I did not have any sympathy for Arthur Scargill and I think he damaged the cause of the miners rather than helped them.

Spot on. He tarred all miners with the same brush and helped the media work against them. It was all "looney left" in those days and he added fuel to the fire. The bloke was as bad as Thatcher.....and that's probably the worst insult i could give him. The miners seemed to get caught in the middle of those two't pig headedness. I have never had the same views about Trade Unionism since then.

 

[London Calling]

THe NACODS - the Pit Deputies, struck a fantastic deal with the Government, excuse me, the Coal Board about 3 months in. At that time the Government was ready to sign a deal. About 70% of the GB public was supporting the strike.

But Scargill refused to go for the same deal. Whether it was his pride or blantant POLITICAL aims, who will really know. That opportunity was lost.

However, the coal industry then supplied nearly all of the coal to the power stations. A change in pence in the price of coal could turn a profit losing industry into a profit making enterprise.

 

[Seagull over SW France]

As a member of 'Maggies Boot Boys' at the time,made loads of money from working up there and found a lot of the 'aggro' orchestrated to sell copies of well_known tabloid newspapers.......

 

[enigma]

they where all losing money, coal is a bad energy! but hey, lets keep them all open because some whole communities keep them as the centre of their unity.

pah!

move with the times NORTHERNERS.


Call centres get closed down to move away for cost and becasue communities arent silly enough to base emselves around a call centre, there isnt mass hysteria.

Scargill.....socialist prick.


queue mass angry flamers: do ya best:

Agreed. They were shafting the country and were too stupid to realise they went too far. I'm all for workers power and stuff but they took it too far.

 

[colinpants]

I stood on the picket lines at Shoreham and various other places too, and did about 20 miners' benefit gigs gigs up and down the country.

I bought the charity record.

 

[Simster]

I find it very odd that none of the NSC pro fox hunting lobby are on here remeniscing about how they helped fight for the miners in the '80s.

After all, they're REALLY concerned about a few job losses now, so no doubt they were on the picket lines when 160,000 were threatened with the dole back then.

 

[Simster]

THe NACODS - the Pit Deputies, struck a fantastic deal with the Government, excuse me, the Coal Board about 3 months in. At that time the Government was ready to sign a deal. About 70% of the GB public was supporting the strike.

But Scargill refused to go for the same deal. Whether it was his pride or blantant POLITICAL aims, who will really know. That opportunity was lost.

I remember that. One morning he appeared on Breakfast Time and was asked why he was refusing McGregor's offer. His reply was "my grandfather once said that if you ever agree with your boss then you're doing something wrong".

What a complete f***ing ARSEHAT.