Me and the Miners Strike..........

I was out on strike for 12 months and I wanted to stay out longer.
I didn’t want to lose. Because we were defeated I didn’t march back to the pit with the rest of the lads.

I only picketed at the place where I worked so I never got to see the horrors at other pits where men were going back to work.
The strike was terrible and I will never forgive or forget the role that Thatcher, the Conservatives and the Police played in that strike.
I hated working at the pit and even now all these years later if I have a nightmare it usually involves being down the pit with either the roof falling in or water breaking into the headings (tunnels) were I worked as an electrician.

BUT, I left the pits in 1991 and since then I have been to university and got a BSc. (Hons.) and a few years after that I went to another university and got a MSc.
I have my own business and work all over the country. I see places now that I didn't even know exsisted when I worked at the pit.
I have achieved what I set out to achieve and that is – to get up in the morning and want to go to work.
I never wanted to go to work while I was employed at the pit.
My life has been featured in a full page spread in the Guardian Newspaper and I have been on Radio 4 talking about the incredible journey I have had from pit electrician to what I do now.

I know that now I am not physically fit enough to do the work that I did in the pit. But realise that if the pit was still open I would still be there because I didn’t know anything else or different at that time.

So why is it when I look back at the strike and working at the pit I still have such sadness and anger?
Surely I should be glad that the pit has shut and thankful to Thatcher for closing it.
But I’m NOT !!!

 

What do you do now Nudge?

 

good post mate and well done, but the miners (i'm ex left in 74 and joined up) were lions led by donkeys who made terrible decisions and then stuck by them, against a system that could,nt be allowed to fail. and i've seen you shoppind at Morrisons in Cortonwood

 

After 9 years in the mine and a family history of Miners and the Deaths and deceases associated with the industry. Best thing that happened when the majority of pits closed.

The only problem now is it is inevitable they will have to reopen the mines when the Oil and Gas runs out, my guess within the next 3 or 4 years it will be a priority.

 

Mixed up feelings

Angry and sad that we were beaten by Thatcher and the Conservatives
But on the other hand no person should work underground - I remember BBC Question Time programme years ago when the historian called Starkey was on the panel and he said this "coal mining brutalises the workforce".

Never a truer word said

 

About a year ago I was on a train with a bloke from Mittal Steel

He was from Huddersfield I think, but was something high up in the Indain Steel giants coal division.

He was saying that they were looking at opening pits in the UK. (and other places that had closed their pits)

The price of oil at the time and new technologies to allow shafts to be sunk much more accurately meant that is was looking economic.


It won't be a case of the governement being forced to open the pits.

The price of energy and the adoption of new technologies and working practices will make it economic for private companies to open more pits.

 

What do you think about Scargill?

Hero or villian?

 

In some ways as bad as Thatcher

both Scargill and Maggie used the miners for their own ideological ends and both seemed indifferent to the reality of the misery of ordinary miners.

 

I loved it.

</p>

Battered, bleeding and fit to drop. Wouldn't want to do it all me life but it was great for a few years. Camaraderie second to none. You ought to have come with us Nudge instead of ligged in t'ring bottom looking atyour watch watch all day. We were the only ones who could do our job and the shift used to fly. There's something good about knowingthe extremes you can push yourself to. Graaaaarr!</p>

 

M1 Tyke's got sand in his vagina because his dad got a slap.

</p>

He actually knows **** all about it.</p>

 

Given the fact that we're now going to have to spend a bloody fortune re-opening pits....

</p>

...100% vindicated.</p>

 

Now now Windy.

Play nice.

Looks like your blood is getting up.

There'll be Soldiers in police uniform next.

Pffft.

 

Scargill vindicated...........its looking that way

............and in another 100 years time he maybe looked on as the Robin Hood type figure of this era
The bloke that most people hated at the time.........but years and years later people see as a hero


I dont think Scargill had the answers but then again neither did Thatcher
After all, she spent £5 BILLION on smashing the NUM when see could have used a much smaller percentage of that money to increase the redundancy money available to miners and most miners would have grabbed this with both hands and left the pits voluntarily.

 

She wanted and needed to break the NUM

in order to break the union strangle hold on the country......

 

Thatcher & her cronies pulled the funding on clean coal burning..

technologies in the 80s. It was based somewhere around the Coalite complex at Grimethorpe. Another sign that Thatcher did'nt want the coal indusstry at all.

 

Oh aye, I'm shaking me fist at the screen as I type. nt

 

Nope

he's just a twät!

 

so what do you do NOW..?? nt

 

there was only one stranglehold on the country..

It wasn't from the Unions. it was a leader and her Cronies intent on making a 'me myself society' at whatever cost. Defeating the miners would go a long way towards achieving that aim.