f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

BBC NEWS | UK | Audio slideshow: The miners' strike

I can hardly believe that it has been 25 years since the miners strike that became the bitterest industrial dispute of its time. I still remember it as clear as day. Sad times for all.

spider

iTrader: (1)

Blimey - is it really 25 years?

I remember my cousin (Police Inspector at the time) telling us about having to ask his lads to stop waving wads of cash in the windows of their buses as they passed the strikers - a thank you for all the overtime!!

coolangatta

Cops eh! Always a bag of laughs. Got to love em

SunnySideUp

The time that the Tories broke 1,000's of very hard working brave men ................ for that, alone, they should never walk the corridors of power.

SJ_Skyline

I certainly remember the miners who murdered the taxi driver by dropping a breeze block onto his car (did they ever catch them?) and Scargil abusing his place of power.

Andy-C

And this lot are doing so much better

They were hard times which started the downward spiral IMHO

fivetide

iTrader: (1)

No, a point at which the government said we run the country not Arthur Scargill and we will not be held to ransom or keep paying the huge amount of benefits you guys get when the industry loses money like crazy.

It wasn't done well, don't get me wrong. As a youngster we had some hard times thanks to all this (South Yorkshire born and bred) but at the end of the day something needed to be done. We couldn't keep going back to the three day week etc of the 70's. Before the strike the NMU effectively ran the country and no one even voted for them.

5t.

Devildog

For ****s sake Pete, give it up. You're not fooling anyone anymore with your supposed political standpoint.

tanyatriangles

iTrader: (2)

I remember the so-called flying pickets coming here and trying to close the steelworks by preventing coal from entering, likewise the power station nearby.
Scargill made some daft comment about the miners having supported a previous steelworkers' strike by not allowing one steel pitprop onto NUM property, and wanted the works CLOSED in support of his strikers. Was never gonna happen.

I also remember the VERY p*ssed off people round here whose fences were smashed and stolen in the night to feed pickets' fires, and whose gardens were wrecked, robbed and defecated in by strikers.

Support for them around here was thin on the ground, they did themselves NO favours, I'm afraid, but they were, in the most part, as arrogant as their leader.

WRX_Dazza

what were they singing???

i was busy playing top trumps in the school playground, so it didnt affect me at all, luckily

Coffin Dodger

Whilst it might not have seemed good at the time surely it must have only benefited trade and industry in the long term as they no longer had to fear the unions. They were a spent force. I doubt the likes of Honda, Nissan etc. would have set up factories over here if the unions still had their strangle hold. Unfortunately coal mining had ceased to be profitable in most cases so why carry on, total business sense on the part of the Tories.

So short sighted Pedro

Now this get this bunch of clowns out of parliament and let the Tories do what they do best, sorting out the mess

falkster

They're still going on about Nottingham to this day!!! Dont go for a night out in Barnsley and mention you like Nottingham.

cster

The greatest givers of freedom from slavery since Moses some would say.
Not to consider the considerable Health and Safety benefits in general.
I ask you - what person in their right mind strikes for the right to work in a coal mine. And their children/grandchildren to boot!
A case of Turkies voting for Xmas in my book.
I know there is a large degree of political polarity from this era, but I can't believe anyone (with a brain) thinks that manual underground coalmining is a good idea. (Compensation lawyers excluded)

Turbo2

Anyone remember Peter Richardson's 1988 "The Comic Strip Presents" take on this affair ("The Strike"). That was funny!

As for the real one: it seemed to go on for ever, but I bet I've not had a single piece of British coal on my fire ever since

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Er well that would have been a top idea had we not had a large number of coal fired power stations and ended up paying more to import our coal than it cost to mine it. Never mind though eh as Maggie got her wish and had a lot of fun destroying entire communities along the way. Scargill was just as bad in getting entrenched in a battle with the government to further his own political ambitions despite his rhetoric about the miners he ostensibly represented.

Good business sense and governments are not generally something to be uttered in the same sentence regardless of whether the party in power is blue or red.

Oh and if you really think Cameron is the man to sort this mess out I fear you are about to be massively disappointed. The sad fact is we don't have anyone who can sort the country out as they are all shortsighted pigs at the trough just with different coloured rosettes pinned to their lapels.

stara

my dad was one of these 'miners' i remember going without food, i remember my parents not eating to give us their food, i remember sitting all huddled together without heating, i remember baliffs at our door, i remember the electricity being cut off, i remember the huge support we had from GERMAN industrial workers, i do not regret it one little bit, my dad was proud and fought for his job all to no avail...the coal industry is dead, so is the steel, so is britain's industrial might...... hindsight eh? stand together or perish alone.

Turbo2

Blimey: and I though the Comic Strip Presents was a comedy programme, not a real-life documentary!

stara

oh how we laughed at the time too.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Thatcher vowed to break the unions and one of the ways she did this was to focus this country on service industries. It's very easy to break down unions by destroying the industries they represent, now if she had managed to break the unions' stranglehold on the country's manufacturing industries while keeping the industries alive I might have been impressed, but not much chance of that.

Feel very sorry for many of the miners in the stirke who were used by Thatcher and Scargill in a game of political football. Very sad.

fivetide

iTrader: (1)

Agreed. As i said we went through it. My dad wasn't a miner but he did work for a solid fuel heating firm, everyone had coal fires back in the day.

The miners stike left us in a similar situation. We had a meal on fridays called modge which was basically leftovers from mon-thurs in one pan.

That said, i still think that the government needed to break the strike ans Scargill. If anyone should be up for vilification it is him.

5t.

jasey

Seems to be a better summary of what Scargill achieved.

I'll bet he's doing OK for himself .

cster

I thought I was cynical!
Seriously though, I think it pays to remember that the cold war was a backdrop to this scenario and a fundamentally important one at that.
It was very much an ideological battle and I don't think the Soviet Union was too bothered by three day weeks and the like.

SunnySideUp

Beautiful words, well said.

Here we are importing Coal, Steel and a whole range of other goods we used to make in this country until Maggie and the Tories destroyed them and built a nation of Finance and Bankers ............... look where that has got us now!

Too many people now wouldn't have the ***** to stand and fight for their jobs ......

Thumbs up to the Miners who took on Maggie - she had stock piled coal at the power stations for 2 years previous ... and then picked a fight.

At the end of the day, the brave proud miners won .... the Tories under Maggie were fatally wounded.

cster

They took a long time to die

tanyatriangles

iTrader: (2)

And I'm not sure many ex-miners would agree that they "won".

hodgy0_2

Having a fairly privileged childhood growing up in Kensington , London
In the Eighties I went to a school geography fieldtrip to a mining town, Nantyglo in S Wales

I had barely imagined a place so desolate and devoid of life, in the country I grew up in

the experience 25 years later has never left me

with all the talk of industry and unions etc it was about communities and a way of life -- very sad all round

and yes that witch Maggie stockpiled coal for 2 years and waited for the fight to start.

fatherpierre

I recall the lights going out in the evenings as power was cut. Candles and no tv - twas ****!

hodgy0_2

not during the miners strike -- that was the miners problem

no coal was needed to be mined (stockpiled for two years)

the lights never went out -- did in 1974, the miners won that timw

hodgy0_2

not during the miners strike -- that was the miners problem

no coal was needed to be mined (stockpiled for two years)

the lights never went out -- did in 1974, the miners won that time

fatherpierre

I was 1 in 1974, so it wasn't then.

I recall the lights dimming due to power being cut down and the tv going off. That was in the early-mid 80s.

It may have been down to blockades at power stations? I grew up in Yorkshire, which was hit rather hard by the whole saga.