Miners Strike - 25 Years On

Once a Scab always a Scab!!!!

That is what one ex Yorkshire miner called the Scabs who broke the 1984 strike and he says he has never spoken to any of them since and he says he never will do either.

I rememeber the Soup Kitchen in Platt Bridge and handing out Mars Bars to the kids of miners and if the miners had have stuck together and won the strike, then maybe Golborne, Parkside, Parsonage and Bickershaw pits would have still been open now, providing local jobs for miners and workers of related industries such as Gullick & Dobson etc

Thatcher's Britain got a lot to answer for

just seen it on GMTV he was very emotional wasnt he 25 years on, my mams next door neighbour Kenny worked at Bickershaw I remember everyone clubbing together and paying their gas/electric bill.

`Latics? Let me ask you a question. If Parkside, Bickershaw Golborne etc were still open and producing coal today, who would buy it?

Power stations, folk who still have a coal fire, Australian coal ain't cheap any more

Coal and wood fires are now in vogue again, especially since the massive rise in electricity and gas.
I'd buy it.

scargill didnt do to badly outa the strike. his bank ballance today would bring tears to the eyes of those who made the sacrifice.(financialy-split families)

I have often wondered, having only ever been on strike once, and then only for a few days if the union officials are the only ones who ever make money during a strike, or do they, like the strikers forgo their pay at such a time. ??????

scargills wife was on the food lines, handing out sarnies and soup. scargill never went into his own pocket once...unless someone on here can prove he did.???union officials never lose out...look no further than this union guy in the news recently, he stayed in a luxurious hotel, when his own union offices and accomodation was available just 100 yrds from this hotel????he cost his brothers(he represents them??) a lot o dosh.but hey...whats new...aint we always been the pawns fer the likes o politicians and other bent officials to wax fat, whilst pulling the bull****
blinds over our eyes.

Whatever we may think about Scargill and the way he went about things everything he warned against came true.It was Thatcher and the tory propaganda machine that was to blame for the downfall of our industry not the union.

Uk coal demand is about 30 million tons per year. Peak demand in the 1950's was about 220 million tons.
The fuel of choice for power stations is gas. In the UK nuclear power is already part of government thinking for the future.
As for coal prices. In South Africa, where I'm posting from, one coal terminal in Richards Bay is shipping 90 million tons per year.Because the South African Rand has moved very little agains the pound sterling this coal is cheap. It comes from seams of depths our miners could only dream about.
South Africa has the highest rate of carbon emissions per head in the world. This is of great concern here and they are actively looking at ways to reduce it. It arises because of the reliance on coal for power generation and the production of petrol from coal.
Although carbon capture and storage are feasible in the UK the technology is not yet proven on a large scale. So the limiting factor for new coal fired power stations in the UK is economic and technical competence for large scale carbon capture and storage.

Username: gaffer

Location: Wigan UK

You on holiday Gaffer?

Idont know if mining practices have changed in South Africa but I once worked with a couple of chaps who had spent some time working in the South African coalfields. They told me that all the gaffers are white whilst its the blacks who do all the hard graft, and bieng paid a pittance for a wage and all living in a compound near the pit. This was 25 years ago so perhaps thing have changed now,but if not maybe thats another reason that coal is cheap, because of its low labour cost.

Speaking as a Union member and once a very successful shop steward I would agree that there have always been dubious Union officials just as we have dubious Government ministers,right up to this present day.However, the real Union is its grass roots members and they should always have the last word.

The Coal Industry.
Scargill v Thatcher.It goes further back than that,on vesting day that was the day the nationalisation bill of the mines went before parliament,Mr Gormelly the miners leader and Lord Crawford of Haigh Hall both shared a train compartment on their way to the House of Commons to see the outcome of the bill,Lord Crawford said to Mr Gormelly
"If this bill goes through that will be the end of the mining industry in this country"it took a few years but he was right.In my opinion the tory governments have always hated the miners,once when the miners was on strike one tory M.P. said "what do the black beggars want now" the M.P. in question I believe was a woman member.
And also in my opinion what both Scargill and Thatcher did to the miners of this country both should have got long prison sentences.I saw first hand the heartache and ill feeling and the hatred this dispute caused and to this day I know of mate against mate,brother against brother,so very very sad.
Churchill always said "Jaw Jaw not War War"
Gormelly always said "Negotiate Negotiate Negotiate".

Just need to correct you there coccium,at the time of nationalisation in 1954, I dont know the miners leader was but it wasnt Joe Gormally.Joe only became Presidant in the late 60s or early 70s.The tory mp you mention was Lady Astor and her comment was "What do the dirty earth worms want now?

sledge,
"If Parkside, Bickershaw Golborne etc were still open and producing coal today, who would buy it? "


0bviously,the same firms and organisations that are buying foreign coal now,whilst at the same time Britain has some of the best deep mine coal in the World !!!

Aqui, .... nationalisation of the coal mining industry was finalised in 1947.
The president of the, then recently formed, NUM was William Lawther.

It's Joe Gormley. Not Gormelly or Gormally.

A good point to remember is that it was an 'illegal' strike.
Therefore, the question remains, 'what would have been the outcome if the action against pit closures had been conducted in a proper manner'?

aqui,I did not say he was president,he just happened to travel to London in the same carriage as Lord Crawford.

tonks,thanks for the correction,my mate's name is the way I wrote it.

And, does your mate happen to live in Billinge, next door to The Unicorn?

Tonker I believe the outcome would have been the same whichever way you discribe the strike.As I Posted earlier, everything Scargill predicted came true.Thatcher was determined to beat the miners after the NUM helped to bring down the tory government a decade earlier.

No-one will ever know!

I know this, one of our NUM area officials bought himself a nice villa in Tenerife during, or just after, the '84 strike. (it might have been Sid Vincent. Anybody know?)

Coccium, Joe gormley only became a NUM official in the late fifties. I can't see him in 1947, as a rubbing-rag, travelling to London to attend Parliament, let alone sharing a carriage with Lord whatever.

The miners, in my opinion were on a hiding to nothing against Miz Thatcher, if she had lost, it would have sent women's lib back to the dark ages, and as she said, the lady's not for turning, she was intent on closing every thing down just to prove that women are better than men in the running of the country, if it had not been the miners she would have found another cause.

It was nothing to do with womens lib. Thatcher sacrificed our entire coal industry just get Scargill she was determined to bring the man down at any cost and unfortunately the cost was massive.

I neer said it was about womens lib Gene, I said she was out to prove that women were better than men in getting what they wanted, I just stated that if she had been beaten, then women wouldnt have as big a role in governments as they have now, wheras she got her way and opened up a lot more doors for them.

This has become a most interesting thread.Unfortunately there will always be bad politicians,bad Union officials and bad employers.Like I said, all Union members should always remember that they are the Union and act for the best interest of the majority at all times.

In my opinion, Margaret Thatcher was purely 'the spokesperson' for the entire governing body of the country. The figurehead, so to speak.
The Government have the last say on what goes on and one person, be it the PM or not, cannot control things single handedly.
To imagine that the closure of the majority of the coal industry was the work of one person is rather naive.

I recently saw Tony Benn,a man that I have a lot of time for,in a TV interview concerning the '84 strike.He stated that it was purely a personal thing on Thatchers part,she was determined to ruin Scargill for the reasons already posted by "aqui aqui".Prior to the strike Scargill was "informed" that 11 pits were to close,he was told by that government that this was not the case,and of course they were right,the whole industry was to close !!

During the miners strike I was working at Warrington General and i remember one day that we had a police officer admitted with numerous injuries to his legs and abdomen. The police officer told me that he had got the injuries after a group of miners had battered him at Parkside Colliery. Later on, some other coppers came to visit him and I was chatting to one and mentioned what he had said to me and one of the coppers said, "Loada rubbish. He fell down a bloody open grid and actually two miners pulled him out of it!"
I remember one particular chap who worked during the strike and was involved in an accident at the pit and a big cheer went up in the pub when the striking miners heard he had been seriously injured.
I was listening to Radio 5 this morning and a woman rang in laughing at the fact that her husband, a copper, had actually worked enough overtime to buy them a caravan. She should be ashamed coming out with stuff like that. Opens old wounds.
Like Frankie Boyle says, "The government wants a referendum on whether Maggie Thatcher should have a state funeral. The only referendum the majority of people in this country would like is whether she should be dead first!"

I think the time and location of the funeral will be top secret?

Aspuler?
There are no longer any small scale coal fired stations, Westwood, Agecroft, Bold etc any longer. Homeowners heating their houses and what little Heavy industry left has switched to gas because its cheaper, cleaner burning, and has no handling/storage/transport issues and most urban areas are now smokeless zones anyway. I am not even going to mention the railways and maritime industries.....like it or not no-one wants or needs coal in high quantity any more so whats the point of producing it?

You claim the Uk has the best deep-mines in the world, maybe so but they are not the most efficient or productive and as result are far from the cheapest. UK mined coal also has a high sulphur content which causes problems and adds costs for the power generators and is one of the reasons they choose cleaner burning imported coal.

Yes, the large scale pit closures were a huge blow for many and I am not sticking up for her in any way but lets be realistic, the writing was on the wall for the UK coal industry way before Thatcher did her bit and it would only have been a matter of time before it died a natural death. It certainly wouldnt have lasted another 25 years on the same scale as it was and unless demand returns the industry will never regenerate itself.

art. Yes, I'm staying with my sister in Cape Town.

Tonker. You are right about the villa. A policeman friend saw the said person handing out expenses from huge wads of notes, none of which was receipted. He was exposed in the News of the World sharing the villa with a fancy piece.

I used to chat with Joe Gormley in the Post House at Haydock, his daughter married the then assistant manager George Cohen.
He said it was difficult to argue against closure when coal from the mine was being sold for 20 quid per ton against a cost of 100 quid a ton.He genuinely believed that it was in the intersts of the miners for him to secure the best pay off he could and the best pension deal.Members of my family were recipients of the pay offs and were broadly in support.
I believe that a more moderate successor to Joe would have continued a managed reduction in coal output. This would have prevented the later rushed closure programme which was driven by politics.Phased closures would have given communities time to act and so prevent the devastaion which followed.

aqui aqui.

South Africa has black empowerment laws. South African companies, including mining have to have part or wholly black ownership. This is funded by loans which are repaid through dividend distribution and share price increase.
The credit crunch has caused a bit of a hiccup with falling share prices but the tight banking regulation has meant that the banks are sound.
The odds are that if you ring up for a job there will be a black person answering the call at the other end of the phone.
Wages are much lower but so is the cost of living.The biggest problem for the black people is that unemployment is very high.
The bottom line is that coal is cheap because it is so plentiful and so easy to mine. At UK wage levels South African coal would be cheap.

Thatcher just wanted to destroy the unions, who ever or which came first! I was a shop steward myself! and in the 60s and 70s there were people about that basiclly didn't want to work just cause disruption, some of the disputes were pathetic and mindless on the other hand A friend went to work at Ford Halewood! he only lasted 10 months! he said when the storage car park was full, someone on the management came on to the shop floor and demanded a change of work practice knowing full well it would cause a walkout, just until the stored cars were removed then admit it was incorrect and back to work! management psychology

I originate from 3 generations of coal miners and made a concious decision not to follow in their footsteps when I left school in 1958.At the moment I am recovering from acute breathing difficulties and it brings home to me the suffering of many of our pitmen today and in years gone by.They,together with the steel workers were the main foundation that made Britain a prosperous country and now their efforts have been wasted and trampled by political parties from all sides.

we get our gas from abroad how long will it be before they start blackmailing us and threatening to turn us off .we were once a very proud nation who could run our own country with our own coal and gas look at us now at the beck and call of europe the miners had guts.

We are but a small country, with a large population. Our commodities would soon run out.
We are totally reliant on the rest of the world.

Believe it. It's true.

The Tories never forgave the NUM for bringing down Ted Heaths Goverment in 1974.
They were itching for a fight with the miners and certainly got one when the Coal Board announced some pit closures (can't remember how many) in 1984.

If the strike had been handled better, by allowing a ballot, Scargill would have had the backing of all the miners. But.........

By smashing the power of the Unions all the things my generation and our fathers and grandfathers had fought for was swept away, to leave some of todays workforce treated like sh*t.

Most tories blame Ted Heath for the election loss.
Joe Gormley offered him a face saving solution but Ted Heath didn't trust him although other goverment ministers did.
In those days nationalised industries had to agree forward production plans with the government. The NCB output reduction plan was important to both Labour and Tory governments because of the high cost of the annual subsidy and the perceived need to reduce it.
When I get home next week I will post a list of closures by prime minister and the cost of the annual subsidy. However the prime minister with most pit closures was Harold Wilson who, from memory was responsible for over 200. When Mrs. Thatcher came to office there were about 200 pits left.

my dad was a pitman....they deserved every penny they got

Thatcher, wrecked the unions,
Blair, distance himself from them,he has gone on to make millions out of his prime ministers job,people are on about subsidising the mining industry,how much as it cost to bail out the rogue bankers?how much does it cost to keep the rogue benefit scroungers, "some people are claiming for two,three,or even four wives"and the honest hard working tax payer funds the whole damn bill,what a mess.

the pit was responsible for my dads death and 2 of his brothers, he always siad he would throw us out if any of us 4 brothers went down the pit, but none of us did

none of my brothers did either aitch....my dad was very ill with workin down pit....

My dad was 52 when he collapsed outside of Woolworth's, he couldn't breathe, and he died in the Infirmary the same day, that Checkoslavakian doctor the mine owners employed, I think his name was Dr Scraeger, or something similar, put the cause of death as emphysema, he had just come out of Wrightington hospital, were he had been assessed as having a 60% disability due to pneumoconiosis, but that stood for nothing, they gave my mother free coal for 6 months and that was it.

52 oh my goodness aitch how sad....how old was you?

I was 26 the eldest of 4.

As an ex pit man my father-in-law still to this day refuses to even speak to the scabs who crossed the line. He did 25 years as a tunnel tiger and even in his retirement years he feels very strongly about the scabs.

aitch thats awfull....mi hubbys uncle died aged 18 down pit he never knew him....

lots of lives lost to get coal

One of my dads brothers died of an accident in the pit, he was crushed, and when my dad died in Nov 65, his brother died the following March with the same complaint

uncle bill died drowning in his own rotten lungs aged 61. His brother in law died of coal related illness (proven)aged 50 recieved £28 compensation.

What's a 'scab'???

Someone who decides, of his/her own volition, that he/she MUST work to feed their family? To pay the bills?

Someone who cannot/will not follow the herd?

Should they be castigated for that?

Funny innit how coal mines are opening up again?? What with re-cycling, that goes out to China/India NOT to be re-cycled. Fed up of low-grade coal being imported into this country from Poland and other eastern european countries. Maggie Thatcher and her ilk should be strung up!!!!!!!

sledge ,
Then who IS using the coal that we import at great cost?

Folk who're not living in smokeless zones and factories who're still using coal-fired furnaces.

The principal users of coal are still the power stations.
Around one third of electricity in the UK is generated using coal.
British Coal (now called UK Coal) are still producing, from nine or ten mines, and 90% of their production supplies electricity generating plants.

We can produce gas from coal so why buy it from the continental bandits.
We can also produce electricity from coal.
We can be self sufficient for many many years so why dont we do it.

I live in an area that is not smokeless, most houses have coal fires or multi fuel stoves and in the winter it smells lovely and looks great to see all the smoke curling up over the village, we pay top wack for imported coal when really we should be burning fuel dug from our own mines.

Aitch
the Czech doctor you speak of was a Czech Jew whos name
was Strak or something similar. He operated at Wigan Infirmary
at one time and like a lot of these refugees he had i think
doubtful qualifications .I know of at least one man who was
buggered up by his butchery. He was still living in Liverpool
a few years ago aged 92.

I remember being on the picket line at Parkside Colliery during the strike.Each morning a bus load of bobbies would arrive and get of the bus each waving £10 notes at us and jearing.That wasnt very nice when we were relying on food parcels to feed our kids.All we wanted to do was save our jobs. I remember one morning when it had been snowing,some of the lads decided to build a snowman.They built a big snowman around a concrete bollard near the carpark entrance.Suddenly a police landrover come driving into the pit driveway and the driver decided he didnt like showmen built by pitmen.He drive straight into the snowman and of course the concrete bollard! The front of the landrover was all smashed.The police on site were not amused but it did give us a laugh for a change.

hahaha I like that aqui

we should still be operating our own coal mines we are an island and should be self sufficient we still burn coal in our power stations and we used to get our gas through coal as well i think this country has gone backwards,

Wiganer516 I was also a tunneller,did your father in law work for associated tunnelling company by any chance?

I can ask him his name is Sammy Weigh

Sorry wiganer I dont remember him but I didnt know everybody.

Brian Reades well put take on the miners strike from "the Mirror"

Fred Goodwin and other sharks are the enemy within By Brian Reade 5/03/2009

Twenty-five years ago, the British government went to war against the enemy within.
You remember them. Burly, sideburned men who dug out coal to keep your lights on and stuck together like Bostik.
Miners, they were called, and on March 5 1984 they started a strike to protect their communities from calculated
destruction.
Margaret Thatcher smelt blood after a 1983 election landslide and went for her ultimate prize - the dismantling of
organised labour she felt was stopping her millionaire friends from becoming billionaire friends.
Thatcher antagonised the strongest union of them all and threw the entire apparatus of the British state at them,
knowing victory would allow her to emancipate the avaricious classes.
She changed the laws to stifle collective protest, stockpiled fuel, killed the case for coal, made MI5 unleash its
darkest arts and ensured her media pals portrayed the striking miners as violent thugs and the police as knights
with shining batons.
A year later, with 11,000 miners arrested, 8,000 charged with civil offences, 200 imprisoned, and 10 men and
children killed, she'd finally won.
The miners were history.
As were the proud communities they came from. Sentenced to a life of benefits and heroin.
She demonised as traitors men whose ancestors had fired our nation's industrial power and fought our wars.
"They do not share our common values," she said. "They are the enemy within."
How those miners must feel now when they see the treatment handed out to the real enemy within.
The reckless bankers who truly have brought the country to its knees. Men whose unchecked wealth was
part of the prize awarded for crushing the unions a generation ago.
Arthur Scargill's crimes were failing to hold a secret ballot and trying to safeguard union funds for members
whose families were living on handouts having been denied state benefits.
Were those crimes in the same league as Fred Goodwin's? Did Scargill cost the taxpayer £24billion and walk
off with a £16million pension and a slightly rapped knuckle?
Thatcher destroyed our nationalised industries and many who worked in them, supposedly to liberate the
economy. But all she did was let sharks like Goodwin destroy the economy through greed, putting nationalisation
back on the agenda.
Instead of throwing out meaningless phrases like "being found guilty in the court of popular opinion"
why haven't we made laws to sequestrate the assets of these criminals and sent in the police?
Why can't we force their families to scavenge on tips?
There are calls for Gordon Brown to apologise for the recession, but why not, on this 25th anniversary
of the miners' strike, force every Thatcherite to admit that the enemy within is not those who organise
labour but those who organise theft.

Then apologise to the tens of thousands of lives they happily threw on the slagheap.

Hear hear Art, or should it be here here but anyroad couldn't agree more.

All this miner talk is lovely, who remembers the strike breakers at liverpool docks??? Wiganers they were I think

At least they got the country moving again, yer scouse bastard.

ooooooooh, language!!!!. Truth hurts doesn't it

Maybe 'Red' Wigan ain't as 'red' as people would like 'em to be remembered

i dont rate scargill as a tactitian. first he takes em on strike in the spring of the year???weeks of coal on the surface. he then overrides good advice from his own close officials, who had he listened to them, they would have come away with 90 per-cent pits still operating. but no, scargill knew best, it was a personal thing with him and maggie, and the end result we are all aware of.scargill went into the strike with a small house and family, he came outa the strike with a very large house and no family. i would add here, he had the largest union in britain, he reuced it to the itsy bitsy, or in other words..insignificant.
he was an egotist of gigantic proportions, and by all accounts, he still is today. in any conversation with him(its all about him) he talks of having defeated maggie??????

A strong argument,well put, @art@.

What a fantastic bit of writing By Brian Reade. Never a truer word spoken.

Very well said Art. I couldnt agree with you more.

mmmmmmm interesting thread, seem to remember that the miners werent receiving any strike pay but they were entitled to £11 dole money all paid for by maggie which was more that scargill paid then also they got there money on there same day they went in for it i was signing on then i had to wait two or three days before i got any money then to rub salt in to the wounds of the local unemployed they opened a shop just before king street were the ring road is now so after they got a giro from the dole they just crossed over to get a very big food parcel as i remember there was a hell of a lot of bad feeling about that, at the end of the day it was an unofficial strike if a ballot had been called he would off had the full support of the country behind him and the miners

levi1962,

I'm sorry,but your post is a bit trivial.When we were kids and we all had coal fires etc,did you ever wonder,then or since,just where that coal came from and what was involved by hard working miners?

Levi1962 Ithink we can take it then that you didnt contribute to the food parcels then.You never know,if we had won the fight to save our jobs,we might have been able to get you a job.You could have come working with me and my mates as a tunneller.

well aspuller considering i came from a mining family no not really point is aspuller if the miners had plyed by the rules even there own rules the result would of been totally differant so it begs the question why didnt they play by there own union rules and before u say aspuller that they did they didnt they played by scargill rules and lost and that is the sad part of it all because scargill wanted to bring a goverment down which was never going to happen unoins had already brought down two other goverment one labour and the other a tory there was no way another goverment could back down be it a labour or a tory one everybody could see this except scargill im just glad my grandad didnt see how the num went

i wasnt bothered about the food parcels or the other help the miners got just didnt like it being rubbed in my face when i had to sign on, can u honestly tell me aqua aqua why the miners refused to take the ballot and make the strike legal where u would have had the support from every walk of life

Levi1962 You have no idea what hardships the miners and their families had to suffer. My husband was on strike for the duration and I supported him all the way. I was one of the founder members of that shop that gave out much needed food to the families of miners, or would you have had children go hungry. Miners did not get any benefits for themselves only for dependants.

Mortgages went unpaid and even the mortgage lenders suspended payments until after the strike was over. Lots of miners were in a lot of debt which had to be paid back over years. Do you think that the miners went on strike lightly? They had an awful lot to loose. Believe me it wasn't a walk in the park.

Thatcher orchestrated the strike and put thousands of people with mining related jobs out of work besides the miner.

I agree there should have been a national ballot but it wouldnt have made any differance to the end result.The tories were determined to smash the NUM.

to be honest jathbee the unemployed were going through exactly the same thing at that time we were in a reccession people were being made unemployed let right and center through no fault of there own u still had jobs to go back to

They had no jobs to go back to after she finished closing the mines down and neither had lots of others. They were fighting for jobs and in some cases, communities.

Jathbee he will never understand,youre better leaving it.

how the hell can you compare some lazy bastard on the dole to a miner out on strike? show me a pitman who had a job to return to.

I had!

So did my husband for a short time.

It was my wedding in September '84 . . was a bit nervous of two of our guests, one was a striking miner and the other a policeman! Luckily there was no trouble!! It's my silver wedding this year . . . if I'd punched Arthurs lights out I wouldve been out by now !

levi1962,
reading that,its difficult to see whos rules you think they were playing by.Nothing on earth could have changed that governments plans,the mining industry was was being closed down.As Tony Benn said it WAS a personal matter on the part of thatcher not Scargill.And I believe him !!!

They used every means available to them and yes it was personal.

I meant to say the ones who had a job didnt have it for long, the coal industry was destroyed.

Some people on here forget just what they have posted in the past They say my husband worked in the pit but then go back in their post and you find A history of just where they worked and if they ever did work in the pit I have fetched more coal up in my turn ups on my britches. Minors where and or still men. Give them the respect they deserve. I know one chap the only time he went down a mine is on a school day out trip. Yet he books the Minors home in Blackpool.

My uncle worked at chanters pit tyldesley started his working life down st georges pit ended up as training officer at wigan NCB with the young ones who were just learning. Then of course died at 61. My grandfather worked all his life for Fletcher burrows in their pits before they were nationalised. Plenty of coal dust in the turn ups of our family.

Minors weren't allowed to work in the pits, seein' they were under age..

u ever been on the dole gene hunt

no I havnt

billy

You have a lot to say about Scargill, but nothing about the police who made a lot of money from th strike!

As for Thatcher, she is the reason why this country is now in a mess as a result of getting rid of our industries which produce its wealth.

Age of children starting work down the pit.
In these districts many children begin work in the coal mines at very early ages. One case is recorded in which a child was taken into the pit at four and a half years old and several at five and between five and six.


Minors weren't allowed to work in the pits, seein' they were under age..

The above statement seems to have been wrong and Minors were sent down the pit

"Minors where and or still men."

"Yet he books the Minors home in Blackpool".

Did minors have a home in Blackpool

recuperation and rest home. i believe its now abandoned, and left to the elements to do a demolition job.

Billy the recuperation and rest home as moved further up north. Its near Hackets Hotel now. It cost £80-00 a week to stay

Twenty five years on and it's still an emotive subject.

I can only say what I feel about it. I supported my husband and the miners throughout the strike. While not everyone in Wigan felt the strike was right, the amount of support that came from the people of our town was fantastic and I applaud them for it.

Not all of our police were in favour of the way Thatcher handled the strike, some of them refused overtime on the picket lines and police where drafted in from the Metro.

Because of the very nature of the miners jobs, they were tough and it took Thatcher and her political machine a full year to defeat them.

Things were done on both sides that should not have been done. I saw my husband arrested on three occasions and never a charge brought against him.

as industrial confrontations go, this strike by the miners will go down in history.

New book being published regarding miner's srike.

Marching To The Fault Line: The 1984 Miners' Strike And The Death Of Industrial Britain, by Frances Beckett and David Hencke, published by Constable at £18.99. To order a copy at £17.10 (p&p free), call 0845 155 0720.

Extracts from today's Sunday Telegraph.

Older ex-miners also credit him with fixing generous pension and redundancy deals which mean they can afford nice cars and two foreign holidays a year in premature retirement.
But many others despise Scargill. They can never forgive him for blindly refusing, against all the received wisdom of allies in the trades union movement, to compromise with Thatcher.Had he done so, accepting that some loss-making mines would have to close, they are convinced that Britain, which now imports the great bulk of its coal from Russia, South Africa and Australia, would still have a thriving coal industry.
But, as one disillusioned former miner put it to me this week: 'At the end of the day, Arthur's ego, and his hatred for Maggie, was more important than our jobs.'

Whatever the truth about his tangled personal life, the new book finally debunks the Far Left myth that Scargill was an effective strike leader.
Set against the National Coal Board boss, Sir Ian MacGregor, whose strings were being pulled with ruthless effect by Mrs Thatcher, he was clearly out of his depth. His mistakes were compounded by his arrogance and misplaced sense of invincibility.

Instead of taking the advice of wily negotiators such as his fearsome Scottish deputy Mick McGahy (who eventually confided to colleagues that he thought Scargill was 'mad'), he surrounded himself with inept sycophants such as Roger Windsor, the inexperienced former union bookkeeper co-opted as his right-hand man.

In perhaps his most disastrous PR blunder, Scargill dispatched Windsor to Libya to seek financial support for the miners, where he was infamously pictured kissing Colonel Gaddafi - just six months after the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, who was shot by a gunman from inside the Libyan embassy in London while policing a demonstration.
Windsor, who lives quietly in France, is among those former cronies who now 'hate' Scargill, according to the authors. His appointment was one of a litany of fatal errors, some farcical, which forced the miners to surrender unconditionally and return to work in March 1985.

For one thing, Scargill called the walk-out at precisely the wrong time: in early spring, when demand for fuel was low and coal stocks were high.

Pickets were often dispatched to pits and power stations that had closed down years ago, because their general's battle plans relied on a 6ft by 4ft map that had been drawn up during a previous dispute in 1974. Then there was the bloodiest confrontation of the strike - the so-called Battle of Orgreave - in June 1984, during which an estimated 10,000 furious pickets fought running skirmishes with 4,000 policemen.
In the miners' mythology, this showdown, at a British Steel coking plant in South Yorkshire, has become their most heroic defeat. Yet in truth, as the authors reveal, it ought to go down as the moment they were duped, for it was cynically engineered as a diversionary tactic by Coal Board bosses.

Although the NCB pretended that keeping the plant operating was of great importance, in reality they didn't care one jot about Orgreave: they simply wanted to keep the mass pickets away from working coal mines in Nottinghamshire.

'When Scargill's loyal members heard him speak. . . with that utter confidence, they thought he must have a strategy. He let them go on thinking it. But it wasn't true. He had no strategy at all,' Beckett and Hencke assert.
Instead he delivered the then powerful trades union movement, bound and gagged, into the hands of its enemies. Never has anyone done so much harm to his own side.'

Scargill's shameful handling of the Great Strike is the more inexcusable because there was a time, a few months into the strike, when MacGregor - failing to realise the weakness of the miners' position - was willing to agree to 95 per cent of the NUM's demands. But his opponent would settle for nothing less than all-out victory.
Had Scargill taken a more pragmatic line, he may well have won the nation's support; for, at the beginning at least, there was much sympathy for the miners' cause.

Many people realised that the vast majority were decent, hard-grafting men who had no truck with their leader's militancy and wanted only to preserve their jobs and proud working traditions.

Furthermore, as the authors make clear, Thatcher and her ministers were hardly blameless. Plainly determined to smash the unions once and for all, they pushed the boundaries of the law by using the police as an instrument of state, hatched Machiavellian plots at secret cabinet meetings, and appeared to have given scant thought to the long-term consequences of destroying an industry that had sustained whole communities for generations.

Mellowed perhaps by age and personal tragedy, even Norman Tebbit, who during the strike was the hard-line Trade and Industry Secretary and regarded as Thatcher's arch 'bovver boy', now feels remorseful for the damage that was done to these pit towns and villages.

While he still blames Scargill for the strike, he concedes for the first time in the book that the closure programme went too far, with the result that 'good, working-class family values' have been lost, and communities 'completely devastated' by drugs and unemployment.

It is a magnanimous admission from an admirable man who is willing to learn the lessons of history and modify his views accordingly. Sadly, that is something that is utterly beyond the comprehension of sneering Citizen Scargill.

In Marching To The Fault Line, which draws on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, plus interviews with many key players in the dispute, the former NUM boss emerges as a remote, deluded and somewhat tragic figure.

Art asks, 'Did minors have a home in Blackpool???'

Yes, Art, they even had a 'minors matinee' every Saturday morning!

My inlaws go to the Miners Hotel a couple of times every year in Blackpool, they love it food is great apparantly.

"Yes, Art, they even had a 'minors matinee' every Saturday morning!"

OK Tonks. Did they turn their chairs round at the table if they were dining out, instead of eating in (not forgetting that I want proof!!

Before it was demolished the building in the background was the Miners Home.
We(Crooke Miners Band), used to play for the Miners rally march through the town, every year. From the North Station, around town, ending up at Hills Restaurant, for speeches & a slap-up meal...A great day out.

My husband went to a few miners union conferences there. Nice pic Art.

Yes,miners did have a convalesant home,paid for entirely by the miners themselves through weekly subscriptions automatically from their wages.This wasn't a holiday camp! To qualify for a week or two weeks there a miner had to be injured at work.In my opinion there dosen't seem much wrong with that.

An uncle of mine spent some time there. He had his back broken in a roof collapse on the coal face, he was lucky to get out alive.

Art The Miners Home wasnt demolished,it is still there, but the building has been renovated and turned into luxury appartments.I stayed in the miners home many years ago following an injury underground. The self contained bungalows that were at the side of the Miners home,and were used by disabled retired miners and thier wives were demolished at the time of the renovation.

thank your lucky stars gene hunt that you avent been on the dole yet because whereas everybody rallied round to help the miners on the dole your on your own, youve got to fight for everything you get youve got to watch your kids go without, never call the unemployed lazy a few are but the vast majority aint oh i admit you had it hard on the strike but it was no where near as hard as the unemployed got it at the same time, its not something i want to go through again but the way the building trade and trades connected to it are going im resigned to the fact that im going to be unemployed again

levi1962,
Miners would always help other miners . This is because of the bond and friendship they have developed over many years, it is totally unlike any other job in that respect.
The other people not connected to mining who helped the miners,did so because they appreciated what miners did.

Levi leave it alone this thread is about the miners strike not your employment or lack of it. I actually dont give a toss that you were unemployed it was nothing to do with me.

My father was in the convelescent home follwing a heart attack, sadly he died aged 59 in the early 1960s he worked down the pit from being 12 years old.

My ex hubby's uncle Martin used to have an old fashioned double decker bus covered in NUM slogans. I remember going in it to a cricket match on Marsh's playing fields at Leigh at the height of the strike. about half an hour after we got there the police turned up, someone had tipped em off there was a miners rally.

yes gene hunt u dont give a toss but your strike put alot of us on the dole that was the thanx we got for supporting you lot yes im bitter i was in a bloody good job did we get support from the miners did we hell miners look after there own not the suppoerters you'll find theres a load of people out there bitter for that reason alone, and what about the taxi driver that got killed just for doing his job, this post should never of been started in the first place theres more bitterness out there than you relize and it aint coming from the miners but the people who got dragged into it the old saying is true - let sleeping dogs lie

i know that townofmemories but im glad that gene hunt said that he or she didnt give a toss about the unemployed theres gonna be a hell of a lot of miners mad at that statement the real miners the ones you can count on know a lot of inocent bystanders got dragged into it and lost everything whereas they did go back to jobs at the end of the strike till the mines started to close down

The unstability within the miners union was started by Joe Gormley in the late seventies. It was he who negotiated the unfair bonus scheme which brought bad feeling between men in individual pits and divided the separate coal producing areas.
Some men were getting five times more bonus than, and taking home twice the wage of, others, for doing the same job.
The conservative government knew of this unrest within the ranks, and so did Arthur Scargill. That's the reason why no ballot was taken, he knew he wouldn't get a majority vote.

For Joe Gormleys efforts in splitting the miners union, he was rewarded with a peerage, by the same Conservative Government that defeated Arthur Scargill a few years later.

ur right townofmemories

Aqui Aqui, you're right, I thought the home had been demolished, there was talk of it at the time.
It's changed a bit (the surroundings) but still very much there

I will leave this discussion as levi and town of memories are determined to take the spotlight off the miners strike and make it personal good discusssion though one of the better ones on here. Town of memories please dont make personal comments about me on here you should be satisfied with calling me a whore on harolds forum
thank you

Thank art. Great picture that. the Miners Home holds sad memories for me,my parents were staying in the bugalows (which are now demolished) a few years ago,when my dad had a massave heart attack and died there.He suffered from syilicosis. In away it seemed fitting that a man who had worked down the pit all his life should die in the Miners Home.

Tonker,

The most useful thing Joe Gormley ever did was to work his way to the House of Lords.

p.l.a?.

p.l a ....ok

i was on strike for 10 months during the miners strike and went back to work 2 months before the end.One of the worst decisions ive ever had to make due to being £4000 in debt was driving through the picket line.

is daikler what they used to call pitmen???

No, a pitmon.

Daikler....This term has been cleared up before.

Some of the Wigan Accents, describe common words with a k or kk, such as Likkle, Bokkle
Daikler is a corruption of Daitler, which is short for Day Tally man, ot Daytaller. A general mine worker with varied tasks & skills, who wasn't on piecework & so was called on to do various odd jobs. A valued worker.

thanks art

Like Art said, but also they went from pit to pit, not being a permanent employee 'on the books' at any one pit in particular. They were paid a day wage.
The term, like Art said, was carried on after nationalisation, to refer to any general mine worker.

It was my fathers occupation as listed on my birth certificate and spelled as i have written it.My dad worked at Landgate colliery at the time.The Registrar should have put Dataller i believe.Did you go to the Parkside re-union Tonker?

No. Tell us about it then.

What would you know about scabs proudidiot. You have never does a day's work.

Now now, Brendan, has Benji p155ed on yer shoes again?

Tonks, did you know any of the two blokes on the first Miners Home pic?

No, Art, 'fraid I don't, although the one on the left looks familiar. Who are they? And what year was that? Must have been after 1978, because there's a Capri Mk3 on the photo!

The book 'Marching to the Fault Line' is available for only £10 on Amazon.co.uk. A reviewer on the site refers to it as

"A thinly disguised Scargill hatchet job. Badly written (describing Scargill as a `silly vain man') and factually inaccurate (Manver Colliery?)

Not a patch on the definitive book on the Miner's Strike: Seamus Milne's classic - `The Enemy Within'".

It's had alot of press coverage recently and may be worth a read.

It's in "the Album" with this caption:
"Terry Reynolds and Bill Thorpe representing Parkside at the group safety symposium seen outside the miners home at Bispham."
Bill thorpe is my Mrs Bro'-in-law, he was a fireman at parkside, & a keen first aider.
Started work from school at Johnpit, just after me..

yes art it is terry @ bill two good lads. 2 firemen.

Two Firemen?

Art ,billy was at the re-union last thurs with his mate jack daniels those 2 never seem to change

Big Tony! Long time, no see!

Are you still selling the Big Issue?

For anyone who is a fan - Billy Bragg is doing a tour to mark the 25th Anniversary - http://www.billybragg.co.uk/

I still have some of his records.

yes but i dont sell jap crap.

A snapshot from 1948/1950 of the north west mining community.
The three pay slips relate to Landgate pit. The smallest one is from 1921 with today's equivalent in average earnings being £610 and in retail price index terms £139. For the 1946 tax refund it is £81 and £25 and for the 1950 slip it is £401 and £135.
The photos are from the NCB in house magazine Pit Prop.They are from a family collection of documents of that era.

img=http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh207/gafferkb/Landgatepayslips.jpg][/img]
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Just a bit of help gaffer

Exellent those Gaffer, thanks for sharing.

john joseph. Thanks. I'm still tired after a long flight from Cape Town.Thankfully jet lag doesn't apply because it's north south and vice versa.

bump

I've just been hunting for this!

Well done APLS.

Reet joseph

Well to tell the truth I had been looking for it too and it seems to me that the search engine bots are not allowed to crawl these message boards cos you can't find any topics on here using a search engine

And I could not find the topic and then I remembered that it was me who started it and I found it using the topics started by me button, if it was not for that I would never have found it

if you have any doubt about the bloody evil Tory Bastards and their attempt to smash the Miners as an act of revenge just get the film brassed off and watch that it will tear your heart's out

Was you a miner peawap

I'Ve watched it a couple of times peawapp and it pretty much sums the strike up. They weren't easy times and a lot of us had a lot of debt to get ourselves out of afterwards.

Excellent film, the struggle summed up in fine words by Pete Postlethwaites character Danny:

"...the government that over the last ten years has systematically destroyed an entire industry. Our industry! And not just our industry our communities, our homes, our lives. All in the name of progress. And for a few lousy bob..."

maggie got her own way in the end with the pit closures then the steel industry broke the unions she has a lot to anwser for this great lady