The Miners Strike - C4

I've tried to move on from these horrible memories of being let down , battered into submission.
Betrayal by those who couldn't see further than the pay packet with huge bonus payments.
We can sleep at night Paul knowing we stuck together.

 

I’ve watched the first two, the third I will pick up maybe tonight.

I was only born in 83 so I don’t remember it but my extended family suffered the effects for years. Possibly still do, places like Bentley, Scawthorpe, Highfields, Woodlands have never been anything but relatively poor with comparatively high unemployment still to this day.

Uncles and cousins, and my paternal grandad, all worked down the pits. Bentley and Brodsworth. My grandad and uncle John were at Orgreave I’m told.

That second episode, whilst I’d read up and seen bits about Orgreave so wasn’t surprised, was a very tough watch. The barefaced lies that followed set the tone for Hillsbrough that came later too. Above the law, SYP. Also above general decency and morals as well. Add in the animals shipped in from the met and elsewhere, and it is a sad day in history which I fear will never actually be fully recognised.

The first episode I wanted to smack that sanctimonious git in glasses from Shirebrook through the tv. A ‘miner’ with home office panic alarms and a police protected office. Don’t make me laugh.

 

I might be wrong, but I don't think that SYP were entirely to blame. Yes, they were just following orders (which is not a defence) - but those orders came from the very top itself. For both Orgreave and Hillsborough, either the Home Secretary or Thatcher were aware and approved the cover ups. Otherwise there would have been a public inquiry while it was still time to apportion blame and people at the top of SYP would have been sacked.

 

The local plod around the mining areas weren't stopping the picketing and were thought by the witches advisers to be too close to the miners and sympathetic to their cause so the Met storm troopers were brought in to stir up trouble and try to break the strike

 

I thought it gave balanced view of events.

 

As a committed socialist and union member who has never crossed anybody's picket line ever,, my heart bled for the scumbag scab.

 

Straight after the programme I called my dad who was a miner a Grimey.
I was away in the forces at the time and the southern boys abused me for over a year during it all (northern scum.....trying to bring the country to its knees etc etc)
I heard bits and pieces back home and knew what it was all about....my southern colleagues did not.
One thing that to this day that proper gets to me are liars and bullies.....that govt and the met were both.
I really do hope the miners get their day and to all of you involved and on strike on here (like dad) I respect and salute you all.

 

Good on you ,and sorry to hear you got abuse from them 2hats

 

They got it back don't worry...but it started turning a bit nasty....lonely place at sea with uninformed idiots, with nothing better to do than take the mick.

 

Northern scum bringing the country to its knees? Should have asked them who made the steel that made the ship they were on. And who dug the coal that stoked the furnaces that made the steel and iron that built the country? Northern scum presumably.

 

Just watched the first episode. First impression is that it gives a fairly balanced account and hints at the Met Police not being too keen on community policing whilst painting a rosy picture of the Derbyshire Constabulary. To be fair, I knew people round here in South Derbyshire who were picketing peacefully (even playing football with police officers) before the Met turned up.

 

I thought it was a concrete post? Like the ones at the corner of the east and Ponty.

 

Just watched first episode mate, I was on strike for 12 months and agree with yours comments, well said.....how have you watched the other episodes pal, I thought there’s only been 1 so far?

 

Only one's been broadcast but they're all available to stream.

 

Thanks