Your memories of The Strike

Re: thats cos tha not a reyt fan, I keep telling thi

Okay.

 

JLWBL remembers the style of play less fondly than I do, but I think when I was a nip I was only interested in results, not performances, so before it began to unravel I was over the moon.

 

I completely agree re: Geddis in fact I still remember being absolutely over the moon when we signed him. As I recall his goals to game ratio was something like a goal every one and a half games. Brilliant but under rated player.

 

I was about 6 years old. I remember the soup kitchens, Police running the miners up and down Woolley Edge. I can remember some Germans sending loads of Kinda chocolate over at xmas too. My dad got locked up a few times aswell whilst picketing. Came back black and blue after a beating from the coppers in the cells at woolley edge services. Police cordoning our street off. And loads more. I'd be here all day if I wrote it all down. Maybe I should write a book.

 

Summat worth mentioning about Barnsley Building Society -

My wife's dad was on strike. Like most in his situation, he couldn't afford his mortgage repayments. He went in to Barnsley Building Society when the strike begun to explained the situation and was told, "Don't worry about it sir, you'll not be put in arrears and you'll not hear anything from us while you're on strike, come back to see us when you get back to work and we'll sort it out."

I don't know if that was the same for everyone with Barnsley Building Society, but I do know that without that they would have lost their home. Unfortunately, Barnsley Building Society has gone now in all but name, as have the majority of small societies. The investment bankers lost their money. If something like the miners strike should ever happen again, no one will be given such help.

 

That Wombwell Reform Club - it's a lot to answer for

 

Some miners from Cortonwood trying to set fire to our house because my mum was a typist for the police. Despite my grnadad living with us at the time who was a striking miner.

It wasn't always the police who were bad!!

 

Re: did that actually happen?

I dont' think any pictures of the Range Rover exist - but here's one a young scally taunting the coppers at Cortonwood

I've always understood this story to be true - mainly because of this photo and the number of people who know the story.

I wouldn't imagine this chap would have gone out on a limb like this if the coppers could just say - that's an urban myth you dyck.

 

You only tend to remember the fun parts when you are a kid , i was 10 and all of the ***** that went on like literally having no money at all. not a penny in the house or the cupboards being bare maybe passed me at the time, we received food parcels from Russia it was that bad... tinned chicken that looked about 100 years old , never mind its all we had.
We played out all day and would have through the night too during the summer of 84 it seemed. i remember it being so hot all the time and if we had a battered football we were happy. We spent ages Digging the coal stack over Ings Lane, cutting down disused telegraph poles anything to help out

The schools and council looked after us during term time, free school uniform and free school meals, often it was the only meal we had that day.

Dad went everywhere picketing, you got paid a few bob so it was a double bonus, doing something you believed in and wanted to do and putting a couple of quid in the pot. He was a pitman all his life, proud and dedicated to his beliefs in the union and strength together.... Something that still stands today. He worked in the wages office with Inky Thompson (future council finance and the guy who signed the cheque to buy oakwell) so only went down 3 times in over 30 years! He was still sure we would win a day before it ended. The sense of community will never be repeated IMO, Friends came together to help each other, would or could that happen now

and you know i don't think ive ever truly said thank you to my mum but chuff me she looked after me and my sister like ive never known. I know she went without so much, and im sure every parent would and did but wow. thanks mum.

 

I was 7 during the strike with both my grandfathers seeing out what was left of their career as a miner (and, unfortunately, their lives due to 'lung related' illnesses). They were thankful that they weren't in the same situation as many of the young 'uns who had only just started what they hoped was a long stint in employment. However, I do remember the 'housekeeping' tin being empty and I didn't get any comics for a year, unfortunately that's all my selfish seven-year old mind was focused on. I didn't really notice the meals that consisted of leftovers of leftovers for several months.

When the Conservatives got the shove, many of my family rejoiced. Then my Dad and many of my friends consistently were made redundant from manufacturing companies throughout the Blair years. You'll have to forgive me if I reserve equal amounts of hate for Labour as I do for the Conservative party, unlike many on here.

 

"Coal Not Dole"

http://www.jukebo.com/chumbawamba/music-clip,coal-not-dole,spsuv.html


They stand so proud, the wheels so still
A ghost-like figure on the hill
It seems so strange there is no sound
Now there are no men underground
What will become of this pit yard?
Where men once trampled faces hard
So tired and weary their shift's done
Never having seen the sun
There'll always be a happy hour
For those with money, jobs and power
They'll never realise the hurt
They cause to men they treat like dirt
Will it become a sacred ground?
Foreign tourists gazing round
Asking if men once worked here
Way beneath this pit-head gear
Empty trucks once filled with coal
Lined up like men on the dole
Will they ever be used again?
Or left for scrap just like the men?
There'll always be a happy hour
For those with money, jobs and power
They'll never realise the hurt
They cause to men they treat like dirt

 

Best summer ever as a kid coal picking collecting wood, helping my Dad grow some veg & the comunity spirit in Elsecar was amazing, however as winter kicked in it stopped being fun relying on hand outs from family & friends proper broke my Dads heart. Changed my life for sure.

 

Re: did that actually happen?

Brilliant that.

 

Foooking going out with Lurchers hare coursing ................FFS !!!!..................hate that with a passion
No matter how skint I was I aint going to do that

 

I'm not really bothered nudge what you think about that,ffs
this was hare coursing to fill a pot mate,probably as free range as you can,much better than eating straight from a farm/cage.

 

I remember walking home with you from Reform across car park and darn valley. Me thee her and somebody else cant remember other,its a while ago that lad

 

I had family that were miners and associated mining workers. Friends dads and neighbours aswell. I was 11-12.

Scavenging for wood in and around North Gawber for the picketing miners to burn

My parents/neighbours contributing to a 'Xmas' fund for families on our estate for prezzies for miners kids

Going to a house at Smithies to buy some fishing tackle for me that we'd seen int Chron classifieds. My dad realising then it was been sold by a striking miner. So mi dad just gave him the cash to keep it.

Going to a farm at Birdwell next to M1. My uncle was on strike. We'd go chopping trees down and I'd load them in a trailor. A family friend owned the farm and always had a food parcel, eggs, rabbits etc

Going to my mates house and seeing the state of his dad. He was a motor mechanic, had his overalls on and was working near Grimey. Got collared by Southern cops and they beat him to a pulp on the suspicion he was picketing

My mates getting dogs abuse at school coz their dads were bobbies

Going to my mates house where I just knocked and walked in. It was middle of winter. I walked in his house, it was pitch black. No lights or fire on. No TV on and him and his mum dad and sister were all huddled under one duvet ont settee asleep. I just turned around and walked back out! That's the main one for me.....

 

Re: did that actually happen?

That's my Gran's bungalow in the background of the pic.

My Dad was at Cortonwood.
I spent loads of time at the end of the pit lane.

We made money by selling body parts to the Scandinavians.
I'm typing this with my three fingers.

 

Even 30 years on the emotions feel raw and bruised of that most difficult and painful and inspiring of times. The memories of hope and despair of defiance and defeat. Of being called the enemy within. Of community. Of unity. The bitter aftermath a town left to rot into nothingness and communities destroyed.

I was 13 when the strike started the worst of ages. I'm the first male on either side of my family tree not to work darn t'pit in generations. My dad, all 3 of my mam's brothers, both grandads and all 8 of their brothers, my great grandad a miner in Wales and on the other side in Cornwall. In some ways I feel like an escapee from my own future. The pain the anguish the new respect I found for my dad never the most militant of men standing proud in the name of friendship and community with however bad things got no thought of going back.

The lessons it taught me that at the end of the day you cherish your family and friends as they are the only things you can rely on. The skinned rabbits that turned up on our doorstep, the meals my mam would conjure out of nowhere and nothing that would feed anyone who came round. A lifelong mistrust and distrust of the police when one nasty day I saw them battering my mates mam with a baton though she was armed with a collection bucket. The hole in my one pair of shoes that I was ashamed of but that I desperately his from my mam and dad as they had 2 younger kids to worry about. How divorced the portrait the news drew of events from the reality. That it's okay to ethnically cleanse within your own country if you have the will to do so.

When Thatcher died this year I was sort of ashamed of myself for being happy that she was dead and rotting in the ground then I saw my nan in her early 90s and all she said to me was 'good she rejoiced at us being hungry good' and she was right there's a hatred of her and her cronies burning inside me that will never go out.

Football. An escape. A mate of my dad's was on the turnstiles and let me and a few mates in for nowt. The crowds dwindling and dwindling. So that even years later there were less than 5,000 there to witness David Curries absolute destruction of Bournemouth. My dad saying he would never set foot back in a Oakwell after they refused to let them. Take the buckets round. A fateful decision that cost 1000s of fans and list a generation. Something in the proud history of our club is something to be ashamed of. Bobby Collins dour football but with some bright sparks. Selling Geddis he was my hero and I've never been a crier but when we flogged him in the midst of all those emotions I randomly did.

 

its hard to believe its 30 years since mukka.

theres some fcukin hares and rabbits gone into the pressure cooker since then