Miners Strike

[John Findlay]

I'm going to upset a certain poster again.

I was on Hms Fife at the time, and the word was that servicemen were going to be used to back up the police against the miners.

Word was passed up if that was the case then there would be a mutiny in the RN, the first since Invergordon in the early 1930s.

There were alot of naval personnel who had family who were miners. Fathers brothers and in my case an uncle at the Rossington pit in South Yorkshire.

 

Naval personnel were never used.

[hmfcbilly]

10 hours ago, Tazio said:

The press did a number on the miners during the 70’s as well with all their stories about miners making a fortune on overtime and living a life of luxury. So by the time the strikes started the hard of thinking had no sympathy. Then you get told it’s an industry on its last legs, so how do people have to do overtime if it’s knackered? Then we spend years subsidising polish mining by importing coal. Genius. 

I would argue that they are doing similar now with train drivers 

[i wish jj was my dad]

10 hours ago, PaddysBar said:

You forgot the biggie, selling off pretty much all the nation’s silver to her government’s rich pals. 
 

 

That's her legacy. We fecked the country in the long term to make a buck for her pals. 

All the pricks on here who sneer at poor folk on welfare never think about what started the cycle in the first place

[i wish jj was my dad]

6 minutes ago, hmfcbilly said:

I would argue that they are doing similar now with train drivers 

And the NHS. Just look at the clip with Sunak and that lady. He couldn't get away from her quick enough. 

[Tazio]

8 minutes ago, hmfcbilly said:

I would argue that they are doing similar now with train drivers 

It's a tactic as old as time. Demonise workers and turn people against them.

[Rupert Pupkin]

10 hours ago, PaddysBar said:

Good post. I was a kid in easthouses / mayfield during the ‘84 strike, albeit my dad wasn’t a miner. 
 

It was brutal but the community rallied. Miner’s kids getting free access to the Sunday club at Newbattle high for example and loads more I would have been too young to know about. 
 

FARTS though😂

I was a kid in Mayfield at that time also.. One of my best friends dad’s was a miner who was on strike, another guy I was friendly with , his dad was also a miner, but he chose to work… They both lived in my street.. The worker’s house windows were regularly smashed, and his son beaten up at school, though I can’t recall my friends ever saying a bad word to each other,but then again I was young, and it was a long time ago, perhaps I just chose not to see it.

Edited January 31 by Rupert Pupkin

[Boab]

26 minutes ago, hmfcbilly said:

I would argue that they are doing similar now with train drivers 

Done the same with the oil before the Indy Ref in 2014. Oil was running out !

Now, hey presto, they’re throwing new licences about like confetti.

 

Wasn’t involved directly with the strike in 84’ but like a lot of workers, supported the miners. First fiver out my pay packet every Friday went into the bucket. 
Interesting to read posts from ex-miners and ex-cops. Some good posting there. 

[Greenbank2]

10 hours ago, JimmyCant said:

I was a cop in 84. My old man was a miner. You can imagine the conflict in our family and it was never healed up until my dad passed (with a disease caused by mining)

 

I remember well into the strike when things were getting really bad for communities. Groups of us were in what they called ‘Fast Action Response Teams’ FARTs for short. We used to patrol the Lothian hotspots in blacked out vans and got sent to Durham a few times. It was pretty hard for a lot of the working class cops (they were a majority in those days) seeing what was happening to those communities. Seeing the bucket raking at night and just struggling to feed their kids.

 

One of the FART vans (not mine)under cover of darkness and rolling in shameful overtime payments, went to a big supermarket in Edinburgh and loaded up with cheap going out of date stuff. They filled the van so tight, they were sitting on each others knees. They drove to Mayfield (I think it was) might have been Easthouses miners welfare club and unloaded the stuff into the car park and covered it up. Getting back into the van and trying to sneak off anonymously a voice came out of the upstairs window ‘Thanks lads, God Bless you’ they had to grab hold of the guy and swear him to keep his mouth shut about where the stuff had come from. 
 

Story didn’t come out till years after the strike and was quickly buried as it didn't suit anyone’s agenda at the time

 

It wasn’t all ‘them against us’ Most cops knew we were being used by Maggie but big huge pay rises a few years earlier made it a bit of a non issue. When you did a picket line and it was just local Lothian miners, it was virtually trouble free and respectful. A but of pushing  and shoving but quite disciplined on both sides. Although you knew you were getting a fight some days when the Durham and Yorkshire guys came up.

 

What really stuck in the throat is many of us had to give employment tribunal evidence against guys who had been sacked for being arrested. We just couldn’t help them without perjuring ourselves. That’s my biggest regret, having to do that, but the redundancies took them all out of work within  a few years anyway.

Really good post. I was in my early 20's at the time and from a mining community. The things that the miners and their families went through at the time puts what is regarded as poverty today into perspective. A lot of them never recovered. Most of the bother was certainly initiated by incoming flying pickets and squads of outside coppers - all of which used their journey to get wound up ready for a pagger. Their were squads of outside police forces who stayed in local B&B's rubbing their hands at the opportunity to break heads and work up 5 figure bank balances, while local miners sold bags of wet coal dross, picked from bings by hand, around the doors.

 

Scargill & the NUM were motivated by the right cause, but got the strategy and tactics totally wrong (no ballot, going strike in the spring. FFS!)

 

Thatcher was hell bent on reforming Britian, but wanted to do so through conflict and wanted to destroy the NUM for their defeat on the Tory government 10 years earlier. Anyone on here singing her praises was either too young to remember or doesn't have a community bone in their body.

[Joey J J Jr Shabadoo]

12 hours ago, Jeffros Furios said:

Thatcher was a Soviet agent .. Tony Blair was a great PM 

She also surrounded herself,  and protected, many child rapists, despite being advised not to.

I'm always suspicious of anyone who admires her.

[The Mighty Thor]

6 minutes ago, Joey J J Jr Shabadoo said:

She also surrounded herself,  and protected, many child rapists, despite being advised not to.

I'm always suspicious of anyone who admires her.

 

Now then, now then, now then.

[Joey J J Jr Shabadoo]

7 minutes ago, The Mighty Thor said:

 

Now then, now then, now then.

Correct. Like I say, I am suspicious of her supporters.

[luckyBatistuta]

1 hour ago, ehcaley said:

As ,possibly,the only person on this thread that was on strike, I find your description and analysis fascinating,your insight gets right to the heart of the conflict!

Dimmer than my cap lamp at the end of a shift🖕

 

👏

1 hour ago, TallPaul said:

Just finished episode 2, shame it became police v miners. Neither side covered themselves in glory the behavior on the picket lines coupled with police brutality.

I don’t know if you’ve been on a picket line, but it can easily escalate and get out of hand. Emotions can take over sometimes. You are struggling financially  to keep and feed your family. Having been on them myself watching guys cross and some smiling, even taunting and laughing, it’s hard not to react. 
 

On Thatcher, hated the **** 

 

 

 

[Jamboref51]

Aye the right to buy your council.house under the guise that having your own home equalled success. Fast forward 30 years and there's nowhere near enough to house people who want one. As a previous poster said she was good for about 0.5% of the country. Didn't care about the other 99.5  

 

[trotter]

12 hours ago, doddsyJR9 said:

Thatcher hated Greens and the IRA. A good lady. 

Are you on glue? Serious question. 

 

The unions didnt help themselves with their somewhat militant behaviour admittedly, but Thatcher's policy of 'let's privatize everything' utterly destroyed socio-economics pretty much everywhere outside of the M25. The rather ironic thing is that despite her well-publicized hatred of trains, she left British Rail alone. That **** John Major took care of that. 

 

Thatcher was in no way a 'good lady'. Saving a few remote islands in the South Atlantic does not make up for her single handedly ruining a country. 

[luckyBatistuta]

5 minutes ago, Jamboref51 said:

Aye the right to buy your council.house under the guise that having your own home equalled success. Fast forward 30 years and there's nowhere near enough to house people who want one. As a previous poster said she was good for about 0.5% of the country. Didn't care about the other 99.5  

 

Greed is good🙄

[luckyBatistuta]

5 minutes ago, trotter said:

Are you on glue? Serious question. 

 

The unions didnt help themselves with their somewhat militant behaviour admittedly, but Thatcher's policy of 'let's privatize everything' utterly destroyed socio-economics pretty much everywhere outside of the M25. The rather ironic thing is that despite her well-publicized hatred of trains, she left British Rail alone. That **** John Major took care of that. 

 

Thatcher was in no way a 'good lady'. Saving a few remote islands in the South Atlantic does not make up for her single handedly ruining a country. 

After withdrawing Endurance🤔

Correct, she done a cracking job of that
 

 

[Pans Jambo]

Thatcher?

 

The only good thing she did was die!!!

 

And she's still deid!!!

 

Good!!!

[Dirty Deeds]

13 hours ago, Dusk_Till_Dawn said:

Anyone watched the C4 documentary on this?

 

Found it really interesting, the range of voices they’d managed to pull together and all the different opinions on it. A very good watch.

 

I’ve no time for Thatcher but the series left me with the feeling that above all else, Scargill screwed up massively by dodging a national ballot. He looked like a genuinely broken man as he announced the return to work.

Thanks for highlighting, I'll definitely watch. I was 14 at the time and recall bucket collections outside Tynecastle before games for the striking miners.

[luckyBatistuta]

17 minutes ago, Pans Jambo said:

Thatcher?

 

The only good thing she did was die!!!

 

And she's still deid!!!

 

Good!!!

🍻 

[micole]

Thatcher quote "Where there is discord may we bring harmony "........Well that went well....Miners strike, poll tax riots...ect...🤦

[i wish jj was my dad]

1 hour ago, Greenbank2 said:

Really good post. I was in my early 20's at the time and from a mining community. The things that the miners and their families went through at the time puts what is regarded as poverty today into perspective. A lot of them never recovered. Most of the bother was certainly initiated by incoming flying pickets and squads of outside coppers - all of which used their journey to get wound up ready for a pagger. Their were squads of outside police forces who stayed in local B&B's rubbing their hands at the opportunity to break heads and work up 5 figure bank balances, while local miners sold bags of wet coal dross, picked from bings by hand, around the doors.

 

Scargill & the NUM were motivated by the right cause, but got the strategy and tactics totally wrong (no ballot, going strike in the spring. FFS!)

 

Thatcher was hell bent on reforming Britian, but wanted to do so through conflict and wanted to destroy the NUM for their defeat on the Tory government 10 years earlier. Anyone on here singing her praises was either too young to remember or doesn't have a community bone in their body.

Really good post. 👍

[Boab]

36 minutes ago, micole said:

Thatcher quote "Where there is discord may we bring harmony "........Well that went well....Miners strike, poll tax riots...ect...🤦

Yip.

St Francis’s Prayer no less !

A peace prayer ! 🤷‍♂️

Someone should have thrown a bucket of water over her there and then and all that would’ve been left was her witch’s hat…the demon !

[PaddysBar]

2 hours ago, Rupert Pupkin said:

I was a kid in Mayfield at that time also.. One of my best friends dad’s was a miner who was on strike, another guy I was friendly with , his dad was also a miner, but he chose to work… They both lived in my street.. The worker’s house windows were regularly smashed, and his son beaten up at school, though I can’t recall my friends ever saying a bad word to each other,but then again I was young, and it was a long time ago, perhaps I just chose not to see it.

I was 13/14 in ‘84 but moved to portobello. 
 

I didn’t know any Ruperts though😀

[WorldChampions1902]

Thatcher lied and lied to the public and the miners about the true scale of her intentions for the mining industry. Scargill knew this but was demonised as the liar on that score. About 10 years ago, Cabinet papers were released, revealing the facts around this - Scargill was telling the truth and Thatcher (and her mouthpiece McGregor) were lying.

 

IIRC Thatcher also spent a long time planning the confrontation with the miners (despite denials), including ensuring all coal-powered power stations built up massive coal stock-piles, in the knowledge that her plans would require those plants to be able to hold out, during a long strike.

 

An utterly evil woman who inflicted untold damage on this country, that we are still trying to recover from today, IMHO.

[periodictabledancer]

2 hours ago, luckyBatistuta said:

After withdrawing Endurance🤔

Correct, she done a cracking job of that
 

 

And refusing to build the islanders an airport , forcing them to fly to Aregntina/Uruguay and then discussing the furure sovereignty of the islands with Argentina (which led the Argies to believe she never cared about the islands and so to war). 

 

Smashed the miners though, so she's  still a legend to some. 

[N Lincs Jambo]

3 hours ago, Greenbank2 said:

Really good post. I was in my early 20's at the time and from a mining community. The things that the miners and their families went through at the time puts what is regarded as poverty today into perspective. A lot of them never recovered. Most of the bother was certainly initiated by incoming flying pickets and squads of outside coppers - all of which used their journey to get wound up ready for a pagger. Their were squads of outside police forces who stayed in local B&B's rubbing their hands at the opportunity to break heads and work up 5 figure bank balances, while local miners sold bags of wet coal dross, picked from bings by hand, around the doors.

 

Scargill & the NUM were motivated by the right cause, but got the strategy and tactics totally wrong (no ballot, going strike in the spring. FFS!)

 

Thatcher was hell bent on reforming Britian, but wanted to do so through conflict and wanted to destroy the NUM for their defeat on the Tory government 10 years earlier. Anyone on here singing her praises was either too young to remember or doesn't have a community bone in their body.

 

32 minutes ago, WorldChampions1902 said:

Thatcher lied and lied to the public and the miners about the true scale of her intentions for the mining industry. Scargill knew this but was demonised as the liar on that score. About 10 years ago, Cabinet papers were released, revealing the facts around this - Scargill was telling the truth and Thatcher (and her mouthpiece McGregor) were lying.

 

IIRC Thatcher also spent a long time planning the confrontation with the miners (despite denials), including ensuring all coal-powered power stations built up massive coal stock-piles, in the knowledge that her plans would require those plants to be able to hold out, during a long strike.

 

An utterly evil woman who inflicted untold damage on this country, that we are still trying to recover from today, IMHO.

 

Re the bits in bold, a visit to a reference library will provide the proof. The miners' strike was planned well in advance by the tories. The architect in chief was Nicholas Ridley (later to be knighted for services to the ruling class). It was documented in the weekly publication The Economist (well-known left wing rag lol) in June 1978 a full 6 years before the strike. When I was still at Uni in the late 80s I got the evidence at the uni's reference library.

 

Everything is documented in those plans: the stockpiling of coal at power stations, which is absolutely crazy from a cashflow point of view unless you have an ulterior motive; provoking a strike to start at the time least favourable to the miners, ie the springtime; making sure the media was primed in advance to delivering what we would now call "the narrative" (anyone remember the nightly drip-drip reports on the TV news about how a miner at one pit, two miners at another had gone back to work??) the laws on secondary picketing and balloting etc - all of this planned in advance to secure the desired outcome.

 

Scargill did make tactical errors the two biggest of which were seen as the ballot (or lack of) and the timing of the strike. What a lot of people don't know was that Scargill opposed the idea of a ballot on the grounds that Lord Denning, when asked to rule in a dispute between the Yorkshire NUM and the Nottinghamshire NUM, had ruled in favour of the Notts NUM and said that he didn't regard strike ballots to be legally binding. Scargill was well aware of this. Funnily enough this was never reported in the news. 

[Norm]

15 hours ago, doddsyJR9 said:

What age are you? Are you trying to goad me into a ban or something? If you are an Snp/plaid cymru/green/leftist/commie etc, then of course you would think tony blair was a great pm. 

 

Margaret Thatcher hated the IRA/Greens/Separatists/Commies etc. Greatest ever PM. As I said, I do have grave doubts over the miners who were duped by the green brigade into trying to bring down the Tory government. 

Thatcher hated the the Greens? I'm pretty sure Thatcher saw them as a complete irrelevance since they were barely 10 years old. 

[Boab]

33 minutes ago, N Lincs Jambo said:

 

 

Re the bits in bold, a visit to a reference library will provide the proof. The miners' strike was planned well in advance by the tories. The architect in chief was Nicholas Ridley (later to be knighted for services to the ruling class). It was documented in the weekly publication The Economist (well-known left wing rag lol) in June 1978 a full 6 years before the strike. When I was still at Uni in the late 80s I got the evidence at the uni's reference library.

 

Everything is documented in those plans: the stockpiling of coal at power stations, which is absolutely crazy from a cashflow point of view unless you have an ulterior motive; provoking a strike to start at the time least favourable to the miners, ie the springtime; making sure the media was primed in advance to delivering what we would now call "the narrative" (anyone remember the nightly drip-drip reports on the TV news about how a miner at one pit, two miners at another had gone back to work??) the laws on secondary picketing and balloting etc - all of this planned in advance to secure the desired outcome.

 

Scargill did make tactical errors the two biggest of which were seen as the ballot (or lack of) and the timing of the strike. What a lot of people don't know was that Scargill opposed the idea of a ballot on the grounds that Lord Denning, when asked to rule in a dispute between the Yorkshire NUM and the Nottinghamshire NUM, had ruled in favour of the Notts NUM and said that he didn't regard strike ballots to be legally binding. Scargill was well aware of this. Funnily enough this was never reported in the news. 

Good post.

Don’t forget the plants inserted to undermine any progress the union might gain.

Thatcher called them the enemy within. Well, that worked both ways. 

[Gundermann]

16 hours ago, doddsyJR9 said:

I was a young man during the miners strikes, and still vividly remember the enormous effects it had across all spectrums of society at that time. While I admire Thatcher for her many great achievements, the devastation that it took to break the miners strikes, was heartbreaking. Scargill and the green brigade left wing unions used the miners to try to bring down the Tory government, and while they were the main architects of the destruction, I still have grave doubts regarding the endgame of coal production in the UK. 

 

 

My supporters bus back in the day had loads of striking miners on it and they were firmly behind the strike. Aye, they were left-wing as *** - no sectarian or racist nonsense allowed. Nowadays, they'd get called 'woke' or 'PC' but they were on the frontline trying to protect their jobs and communities against Thatcher and her cops.

 

Decades on and small towns in Scotland and England are still feeling the effects. Tories never 'look after our own' - they only look after their own ilk. Thatcher did more damage than the IRA could.

[Gundermann]

5 hours ago, Pap said:

 

He slid out one. 

[Joey J J Jr Shabadoo]

3 minutes ago, Gundermann said:

 

 

My supporters bus back in the day had loads of striking miners on it and they were firmly behind the strike. Aye, they were left-wing as *** - no sectarian or racist nonsense allowed. Nowadays, they'd get called 'woke' or 'PC' but they were on the frontline trying to protect their jobs and communities against Thatcher and her cops.

 

Decades on and small towns in Scotland and England are still feeling the effects. Tories never 'look after our own' - they only look after their own ilk. Thatcher did more damage than the IRA could.

Imagine if they had succeeded that day in Brighton?

 

[ri Alban]

5 minutes ago, Joey J J Jr Shabadoo said:

Imagine if they had succeeded that day in Brighton?

 

She'd have been a martyr. Feck that.

[il Duce McTarkin]

4 hours ago, Boab said:

Wasn’t involved directly with the strike in 84’ but like a lot of workers, supported the miners. First fiver out my pay packet every Friday went into the bucket. 
 

 

A fiver was a small fortune in 84, Boab. Good lad.

[Fitzroy Pointon]

Yeah, I enjoyed that. Is there a second part? 

 

Would really recommend Still the Enemy Within documentary on the subject as well. 

[Boab]

1 minute ago, il Duce McTarkin said:

 

A fiver was a small fortune in 84, Boab. Good lad.

Can’t remember what I was on then. 
Time served in 84’ so must have been maybe 1/20 of my wage ?

Probably like handing over £20 a week now.

[ri Alban]

4 minutes ago, il Duce McTarkin said:

 

A fiver was a small fortune in 84, Boab. Good lad.

My first Job was £35 a week, in 1989. A fiver bought quite a bit back then.

[Joey J J Jr Shabadoo]

24 minutes ago, ri Alban said:

My first Job was £35 a week, in 1989. A fiver bought quite a bit back then.

I'm sure a pint was about a pound, maybe jtus over.

[Dawnrazor]

1 minute ago, Joey J J Jr Shabadoo said:

I'm sure a pint was about a pound, maybe jtus over.

In 1987 a pint of 70" was 97p, in '84 I'd think about 80/90p?

[Gundermann]

53 minutes ago, Joey J J Jr Shabadoo said:

Imagine if they had succeeded that day in Brighton?

 

 

[ri Alban]

15 minutes ago, Joey J J Jr Shabadoo said:

I'm sure a pint was about a pound, maybe jtus over.

10 fags were about 70p

Edited January 31 by ri Alban

[JudyJudyJudy]

Very interesting anecdotes and views about this issue . 

[Boab]

17 minutes ago, Dawnrazor said:

In 1987 a pint of 70" was 97p, in '84 I'd think about 80/90p?

Sounds familiar.

Either way, I was glad to donate. If it got one miner’s family a few groceries a week, I was happy with that.

[ri Alban]

1 minute ago, Boab said:

Sounds familiar.

Either way, I was glad to donate. If it got one miner’s family a few groceries a week, I was happy with that.

 👍

[il Duce McTarkin]

48 minutes ago, ri Alban said:

My first Job was £35 a week, in 1989. A fiver bought quite a bit back then.

 

My first job was £28 YTS as an apprentice in January 1991. A fiver went a long way.

[ri Alban]

1 minute ago, il Duce McTarkin said:

 

My first job was £28 YTS as an apprentice in January 1991. A fiver went a long way.

The Record(Market) Shop in Johnstone was my favourite place , on pay day.

Edited January 31 by ri Alban

[Dawnrazor]

5 minutes ago, Boab said:

Sounds familiar.

Either way, I was glad to donate. If it got one miner’s family a few groceries a week, I was happy with that.

👍

[il Duce McTarkin]

24 minutes ago, Dawnrazor said:

In 1987 a pint of 70" was 97p, in '84 I'd think about 80/90p?

 

I could get a pint in the Colinton Inn when I was 16 in 1990 for around a pound iirc.

[il Duce McTarkin]

2 minutes ago, ri Alban said:

The Record(Market) Shop in Johnstone was my favourite place , on pay day.

 

Global Records on Dalry Road by Haymarket was mine.

[Dawnrazor]

1 minute ago, il Duce McTarkin said:

 

I could get a pint in the Colinton Inn when I was 16 in 1990 for around a pound iirc.

I remember it was 97p because for the 2p and 1p's change went into my big bottle full of change, a pint of Pale Ale was less than 90p.

[ri Alban]

3 minutes ago, il Duce McTarkin said:

 

Global Records on Dalry Road by Haymarket was mine.

I'm thinking Stereo 1. But I can't remember.  Bought all The Who and The Jam albums I could afford,  each week. And tapped money aff my maw for work.