The Miners Strike...25yrs on

[Joy11]

I t was sad to see on our local News that families are still bitter enemies due to the miners strike, one guy hadn't spoke to his "scab" brother since and says he never will, I'm from the North but not from one of the many mining communities that were here, I can't imagine how it must have felt then, father against son, brother against brother and in the middle, a Mother trying to hold it all together.

[R1Geezer]

sorry sheep led by a Donkey, kin idiots all of them, let's go on strike in March just before err, spring and the government had stock piled coal, no one noticed for 9 months! Talk about "Into the valley of death", what a bunch of numpties.

[Joy11]

Morning Mani and R1, I am interested what peoples lives are like now too Manian d as a Northerner, you can emperhtise with the situation as I can.
Are you from a community where mines closed R1? where a mans dignity was taken from him? Mrs Thatcher had one goal and that was to close the mines, I am not a fan of Mr Scargill but he dared to take on the ruthless Mrs Thatcher on behalf of these pit villages, they are a very proud race of men and never someone I could attribute the word" sheep" to, ask anyone who still goes to the annual Miners Gala, they still parade proudly behind their banners even after all this time

[Booldawg]

It was the same in the English Civil war where Brother fought brother and Father fought son.

I'm sure families cut communication over lesser disagreements.

[sqad617]

Joy......difficult times. BUT: "Mrs Thatcher had one goal and that was to close the mines, I am not a fan of Mr Scargill but he dared to take on the ruthless Mrs Thatcher"

I didn't see it that way, I saw Mrs Thatcher taking on the Unions, not just the Miners. We could import Australian surface mined coal much cheaper than the deep mined coal of UK, which incidentally there was a diminishing call for.
We were mining coal that was too expensive and few people needed.

Communities were devastated and I remember the film "Brassed Off" with a marked degree of empathy.

[troutater]

The miners went on strike to save the pits from closing. The Government were happy to buy coal from Poland , cheap subsidized coal.
Closed the pit, put everyone out of work , on the dole and then Poland could put the price of coal up.

[R1Geezer]

The whole probelm at the time was that socialsim was strangling the Country, the economics of those industries was a disaster, coal, steel, Leyland etc etc all losing shed loads of public money. The strike was not about the mines or the miners, it was a straight scrap between MrsT (yes MrsT pretty much stood alone as most of the rest of the lilly livered lot hid under the desk) and the Unions. It just happend that this was the battle ground. You see 20 years of union dogma and out of hand nutters like Scargill and Red Robbo and co put MrsT into power. Maggie was a direct result of the out of hand union disease. They put her into power, she was the much needed cure. Normally a miners strike would last a few weeks but this was different because al the power stations where stocked high with coal and MrsT goaded the Donkey into a strike in the spring, the sheep duly follwowed believing it was a strike about the mines when in reality they where the light brigade first up for the slaughter of unoin power that followed. They did it themslelves all of it, Thatcher just cust out the tumor. You didn't see Noo Labour repealing any of her changes did you?

[Joy11]

I am in agreement with the political attributes, but in my post I am trying to go to grass roots level and wanted to find out what are these families who were torn apart doing, I have made a comment about the ruthless Mrs T and that is as much as I would want to say politically, it is the human face of this era I was interested in, we all can pontificate whether she was right or wrong, depends which side of the fence you're on, we have good healthy debates in my house, my husband was a Thatcherite, I saw her as a very srong leader, but the heartache this must have caused is endless

[R1Geezer]

Ok the human side. They blindly followed and idiot out of the standard belief that the world owes them a living. Yes they wanted to preserve their jobs but refused to acknowledge that essentially their jobs where not sustainable except by state aid. In fact it was widly said by miners and their leaders at the time that the pit closures where for economic reasons, like that was a bad thing! They also sufferred because of their leaders bravado and faulty tactics. They stuck out an unwinnable strike and created huge bitterness among thmeselves when inevitably the more intelligent ones realised what was happenning. It was a human disaster yes but it was mainly the fault of socialism believing that some how you have a right to a job and the idiocy of following a lemming off a cliff.

[Joy11]

strong words R1,I and I'm finding myself in agreement too it is probably for me as a woman, the feeling for those women at the heart of it all, having said that, the pictures of some of the women on the picket lines were an ugly scene with kids being used as fodder, the police of the day though were extremely heavy-handed, who commanded them to be so brutal?

[logic]

closing the coal mines was one of the best things that happened,
yes I lived in a mining area,
and yes I was a miner once.

[Joy11]

why do you say that logic?
closing the mines was the best thing????
what about the decline of all of the villages, the unemployment, the wider effect on the local economy?

[craft1948]

I'd be very careful regarding your comments about the police Joy11. Undoubtedly there were some police who were definitely out of line but not the majority who didn't even want to be there themselves.
When the miners strike started my sister had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and her husband was a policeman. Two weeks after her op they said her husband had to go on duty on the picket line and my sister was in a hell of a state with worry.
The miners came round the pubs with collection buckets and when I politely declined to contribute they spat in my face.....

[R1Geezer]

well reading between the lines joy I'd say logic probably thinks it was a good thing mainly because it openned the eyes of a few, to new possibities, That mining was just one job among many. Perhaps new training in new areas could lead to new and exciting opportunties. Most them them just had the one track mind, I imagine logic was one of the few that did not. Am I right logic? I'll bet the trusty R1 that you reskilled and got a new career instead of whinning that daant pit was your destiny and following socialist idiot who wanted a fight with the Tories.

[Joy11]

Oh craft, please don't think for one minute that I would think all of the police were heavy handed, of cause that would never be the case, I am rederring to to the news reels of the time which like anything else only show the ugly side of things and for you to have that done to you was disgusting and I can see where you are coming from, I have no experience of it but posted the thread as it has been on our local News, everyones views on here have most certainly enlightened me and made me see things from different angles

[JimmyCooper]

Miners were like the car workers of today

Producing too much of an over priced product that people don't want

Natural wastage

[garner]

Sorry but living in South Yorkshire I can tell you first hand that the Police in this area were heavy handed.The aftermath of it all that our town is like a ghost town, shops closed,the loss of communities, miners welfare clubs closed.Ours is a very derelict area now.

[sandmaster]

Two people caused this catastrophe. Thatcher and Scargill. Thatcher wanted to close the mines and destroy the unions. I think she was wrong on both counts. The coal industry needed to be made profitable but she was intent on destroying the industry. Scargill wanted a meal ticket for life for the unions - he failed in that but got one for himself. He also wanted the unions to dictate government policy - something that could not be allowed.
If we had had two reasonable people in those positions we would still have a coal industry.
Little known - but the banks (Thatcher hated them) instructed their managers to assist striking miners who were customers, as much as possible.

[kempie]

Heavy-handed police? There were certainly many instances of such actions, but I do not recall them killing anybody.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_David_ Wilkie