Wasn't It called the East Side project. To wash it all at Grimethorpe. We at Redbrook and wooley was called the West Side project if I remember. We earned endless overtime as Electricians , booked down to this investment by the then government.
Yes that’s correct for a while we had some Coal going underground to Grimethorpe and some drawn out to our own washers along with Dearne valleys via the overland conveyor . When we joined up for the East side we sent all the coal through to Grimethorpe with the coal seams that weren’t connected closed . Coal went via Houghton from Darfield and I think the overland belt from Dearne Valley was extended through to Grimethorpe as far as I’m aware .
I worked at grimey washer @ it was called Southside. I think there were four other pits coal being washed there when it opened in 1985
Sounds about right. Wasn't it called the plan for coal .???? Early 80s ,millions of investment to be Spunked up the wall by Maggie. As she had some history with Arthur.
It was done as a re think of the plan for coal but Maggie used it to make them loss making and ripe for closure as a punishment for the strike .
If I remember right the new Shaft sank at Redbrook with all the costs of connection with Wooley ,were put onto the running costs of getting coal. Overnight Redbrook became unprofitable. Because it now had a huge mortgage to pay back. The ordinary person had no idea this was the case . We were running at a profit prior to this.
In theory. I was the public and supported the strike. Let's not beat around the bush, Thatcher was determined to crush the unions. If the vote had been taken , it still wouldn't have been enough.
We gave 12 months without a penny ,that's called sticking together. I would have much preferred us all sticking together. That would have been acheived with a national ballot.
But those miners who didnt want to strike still.wouldn't have to, so the divisions would still have been there.
No it wouldn’t have , Remember the incentive ballot when nationally it was rejected and Notts said that their area voted for it so they decided to implement it . After the strike it was found out that if a national ballot was for the strike they were gonna go against it if the Notts area had voted against it. The Notts area we’re gonna go against the national area choose what and it aspired that this had been he plan for years . So you’re wrong that a national ballot would have brought us all together and that’s why the union were trying the strategy of not crossing picket lines .
Fair enough but what was your opinion when they went against the national ballot for the incentive scheme? Notts miners have a history of going against the rest of the country , they went back to work in the 1926 general strike . Thatcher had been sowing the seeds for years in the Notts area , Roy Link, Greatrex and the Silver Birch etc and the invention of the UDM weren’t just put together because of and during the miners strike , these people were organising for years , campaigning against the leaders of Notts NUM officials secretly sponsored by the state .
I remember voting in that ballot and was ill advised to vote for it. Worse thing that ever happened. Split us apart. I know full well ,what went on in 1926. In my opinion if he would have called a national ballot we would have had more support. He played right into maggies hand ,when the overtime ban was starting to bite. This is all in hindsight . At the time I was fully behind it. I just feel Orgreave was another turning point . Where the Notts coalfield were shearing one shift out of 3,when the mass picket took place at Orgreave they went back to cutting coal on 3 shifts. She had a blank cheque to crush the NUM. I think we could have challenged it better.
