New miners strike documentary

I don't think I'd hack it and I was born just after the strike. Took a certain type of person. I haven't got the b o llocks.

 

I was just leaving school and my Dad wasn't a miner so I'm far from an expert on the subject but I wonder if the times right to restart the call for a public inquiry into Orgreave. The plight of the miners seems a popular subject at the moment and we are hopefully on the verge of a Labour government all be it one with a small c time the truth was told.

 

The Grimethorpe scheme was about sulphur and nitrogen discharges, not carbon dioxide.

 

Oh I always thought they were trying to prototype clean coal technology ,I thought it was for CO2 .

 

What ever they were doing I can remember the government withdrawing the funding to carry this out.

 

I don't think CO2 was widely recognised as an issue back then (1982 ish).

 

Took me a long time to get round to watching this. I think it is a fair summary of the situation at the time. It was an awful time and perhaps the suffering of families wasn’t given enough time. It seems to me that Scargill did as much as anyone to destroy the unions by not holding a national ballot. If he had and he had lost, he could have stepped down with dignity. He gambled everything and lost everything. Brave men and families backed him. No real winners, but mining communities definitely lost.

 

If memory serves a National Ballot was held quite a while before the strike and the vote was to fight any pit closure programme. The Notts miners would’ve still voted overwhelmingly against a strike, they mistakingly thought their pits were all safe. Oh there were mistakes such as early in the strike when some pickets were using or threatening to use violence, some wouldn’t come out as they saw it as giving in to intimidation. Also remember at a branch meeting when the Yorkshire coalfield first came out on strike with the bombshell they were going to close Cortonwood, Our branch delegate told us Scargill wanted us to go back to work for the time being until further discussions had taken place. Yorkshire resoundingly told Scargill where to get off. This Scargill started/ wanted the strike mantra is way off the mark, of course he backed it, but he initially wanted to hold fire

 

There was never a national ballot for strike action as I recall, maybe there was a national ballot to fight pit closures but not specifically for a strike. You're probably right that Arthur wanted to wait a bit, after all it was pretty stupid to strike in the late spring when demand for coal was only going to fall for several months. Unfortunately the NCB had been stockpiling as a contingency against a strike and it proved to be effective.

All in all it was an awful time with an awful government and a union with a genuine cause which was destined to fail. Only glad that my dad (40 years on the face at Hickleton and Highgate pits) retired in 1980.

 

My cousins in Australia still do. And have a very high standard of living.

 

I hope they don't suffer from the dodgy lungs, vibration damage and other after effects of working underground that many miners here had.

 

The ballot we had was in Yorkshire around 80% to strike if a pit was closed in Yorkshire.
Guess why Maggie shut Cortonwood.
Don't take much working out.
The overtime ban was killing them.

 

I'll be sure to let them know of your concern.

 

Well I have just had 2 new knee replacement on the strength of it.
I would rather have the originals if we can turn the clock back.
And also the money paid out for compensation comes out of the 6 billion pound per year creamed off the miners pension scheme.
Just saying like

 

I’ve only got the one replacement Bazza and that were cosof football not pit as I was a pit topper lol, hope tha doing well mate

 

Just been reading through all these posts, I was a 35-year-old striking miner with a family in 1984, and for some of the posters who were not involved you have no idea what it was like. The man who shut the pits was an American brought over by the Tory Government to shut the pits and smash the working-class was McGregor.

 

I first came across McGregor when my dad and granddad were steelworkers in Scunthorpe in ~1980. After that, we moved to Barnsley because it offered my dad a secure, well-paid job...

15 months on strike in 5 years in two different industries.

Edit: He was actually Scottish, but Callaghan bought him back from America to work at British Leyland.

 

He was a r8 **** mate, I was an apprentice at steelworks when he was boss and they had their strike, unfortunately when I went to NCB he also showed up there, a proper arrogant mate of Thatcher he was , a proper C,U,N,T, and that’s swearing!!!

 

It was a war against the working man & the unions. There was no economic sense to it. Thatcher would have probably lost the 83 election, if it wasn't for the Falklands TBH.

 

I'm cooking with gas ,but mine were nowt to do with football, I couldn't catch you.
But I stopped some of them that thought they could play lol