Thread: The Miners' Strike - 1984

Originally Posted by roadster280

Originally Posted by brokerboy

Originally Posted by roadster280

Originally Posted by pombsen-armchair-warrior

I wonder if this sense of community still exists, or if it is something that has, like so many great British attributes and qualities, fallen victim to the 'me' and 'self-preservation' culture.

Wasn't the strike all about "'me' and 'self-preservation' culture"? Didn't the miners object to closure of uneconomic pits (ie "me"), and didn't they rebel about the elimination of their occupation (ie "self preservation").

What a pity that the miners could not see that their own wage demands had made themselves redundant. If it's cheaper to buy coal (or steel, or make ships) overseas than it is to produce domestically, then some serious thinking on the part of the union leaders should have happened. But no.
.

no , you prize c***, it was about men striking to try to save their jobs , they were lions led by donkeys admittedly, but they have been proved right, look what is left of our coal industry now,the foreign coal was cheaper for a few reasons , among them that a lot of it was imported from the old eastern bloc and the ther being that the foreign coal exporters saw what was happening and waited until they had us over a barrel as they do now, the foreign coal isnt cheap anymore, and ive no ties to the mining industry either , in fact im a tory voting futures broker from London.

"I want to save my job."."I know, I'll go on strike, that'll learn 'em".

And you call me a "prize c***"?

like i said , lions led by donkeys,if they'd started the strike when coal stocks were low they might have had a chance, you should check your facts before dismissing the miners, look at the recent tube drivers strike , "i know ill go on strike to stop redundancies that'll learn em" well it did didnt it, the rail companies caved in , no jobs were lost , and the train drivers won, so yes you are a prize cock.

Originally Posted by roadster280

"I want to save my job."."I know, I'll go on strike, that'll learn 'em".

And you call me a "prize c***"?

Yeah - the miners, the dockers, the shipyard workers - all went on strike to make sure they got theirs, and so they did, their P45s.

Originally Posted by Mr_Fingerz

Originally Posted by Cuddles

The miners' strike saw 203 (Elswick) Fd Bty RA (V) achieve an amazing peak of training and capability. I would love to lodge a FOIA request asking how many MTDs were expended in that unit between 1983-1984 and then say 1988-89!

I seem to recall that there was a big exercise in Germany during the first summer of the strike (Lionheart?), and the Daily Hate was up in arms that a load of striking miners were being paid by the government to make a mess of the german countryside.

Lionheart or Keystone...I disremember. We had a full orbat, plus limbers/odds and sods. In fact there were so many random troops crawling out of the Northumbrian woodwork, the pipe-band was able to go off on tour!

Originally Posted by drain_sniffer

Originally Posted by brokerboy

Originally Posted by roadster280

Originally Posted by pombsen-armchair-warrior

I wonder if this sense of community still exists, or if it is something that has, like so many great British attributes and qualities, fallen victim to the 'me' and 'self-preservation' culture.

Wasn't the strike all about "'me' and 'self-preservation' culture"? Didn't the miners object to closure of uneconomic pits (ie "me"), and didn't they rebel about the elimination of their occupation (ie "self preservation").

What a pity that the miners could not see that their own wage demands had made themselves redundant. If it's cheaper to buy coal (or steel, or make ships) overseas than it is to produce domestically, then some serious thinking on the part of the union leaders should have happened. But no.
.

no , you prize c***, it was about men striking to try to save their jobs , they were lions led by donkeys admittedly, but they have been proved right, look what is left of our coal industry now,the foreign coal was cheaper for a few reasons , among them that a lot of it was imported from the old eastern bloc and the ther being that the foreign coal exporters saw what was happening and waited until they had us over a barrel as they do now, the foreign coal isnt cheap anymore, and ive no ties to the mining industry either , in fact im a tory voting futures broker from London.

So, what you are saying is that the Eastern Block countries (then the USSR) saw the end of Communism coming in 10 years time and thought "hang on comrade, if we wait 25 years we can have the UK over a barrell"? No wonder your a futures broker! Whats next weeks lottery and when can I safely invest in Lloyds?

i'll say it slowly so you have a chance to understand beore you jump in with both feet and make yourself look sill again, i said a lot , not all was imported from the eastern bloc, and for your information , the eastern bloc comprised more than the ussr, perhaps you should go away and do some research before you post again ?

Originally Posted by brokerboy

Originally Posted by roadster280

Originally Posted by brokerboy

Originally Posted by roadster280

Originally Posted by pombsen-armchair-warrior

I wonder if this sense of community still exists, or if it is something that has, like so many great British attributes and qualities, fallen victim to the 'me' and 'self-preservation' culture.

Wasn't the strike all about "'me' and 'self-preservation' culture"? Didn't the miners object to closure of uneconomic pits (ie "me"), and didn't they rebel about the elimination of their occupation (ie "self preservation").

What a pity that the miners could not see that their own wage demands had made themselves redundant. If it's cheaper to buy coal (or steel, or make ships) overseas than it is to produce domestically, then some serious thinking on the part of the union leaders should have happened. But no.
.

no , you prize c***, it was about men striking to try to save their jobs , they were lions led by donkeys admittedly, but they have been proved right, look what is left of our coal industry now,the foreign coal was cheaper for a few reasons , among them that a lot of it was imported from the old eastern bloc and the ther being that the foreign coal exporters saw what was happening and waited until they had us over a barrel as they do now, the foreign coal isnt cheap anymore, and ive no ties to the mining industry either , in fact im a tory voting futures broker from London.

"I want to save my job."."I know, I'll go on strike, that'll learn 'em".

And you call me a "prize c***"?

like i said , lions led by donkeys,if they'd started the strike when coal stocks were low they might have had a chance, you should check your facts before dismissing the miners, look at the recent tube drivers strike , "i know ill go on strike to stop redundancies that'll learn em" well it did didnt it, the rail companies caved in , no jobs were lost , and the train drivers won, so yes you are a prize c***.

Perhaps as one who advises others to check facts, perhaps you should do the same regarding the Underground. Has F all in common with the miners and under completley different circumstances. Thatcher knew that the mines had to be trimmed, and knew Scargill would fight on a class war, hence the coal stockpile. The miners would never ever win. As for your "lions" piece, what are your thoughts regarding the treatment of those that went back to work to feed their families by those still on strike. More like the actions of hyienas and vultures

Scargill was and is a communist. Not a paper communist but the real thing.
He genuinely believed that he could bring down the Thatcher government, he had good grounds to believe that. All you have to do is look at the 1974 strike and the results of it.
He made some big mistakes, notably failing to take into account the coal stockpiles all over the country.
Thatcher had no choice but break the unions and the NUM was pretty much the most powerful of all. What she didn't have to do was gut the industrial base of Britain, there was no need to kill the coal, steel and shipbuilding industries that built this country.
For all those of you out there that believed that British coal was dead because its expensive, the real cost saving from buying Columbian coal was 12 pence a ton. We made tens of thousands unemployed and destroyed whole towns for a few pence.
We still see the knock on effects in many mining towns around the country now. Yeh, sure, most have now some employment in call centres etc but not the good living that was earned 30 years ago. We are now into the 3rd generation of dole wallas and layabouts thanks to Thatcher and Scargill
Some still defend pit closures now as being due to market forces, that bullshit, it was simply down to a power struggle between the unions and the government. I strongly believe the unions had to have their power taken off them (they were not elected by the country to dictate policy to government)
End result is that we de-industrialised and became a service based economy, that worked out well in the end didn't it?

Originally Posted by brokerboy

you should go away and do some research before you post again ?

I dont need to. I think you might though

Yes, UK industrial history is littered with successful strike intervention.

British Leyland - What's left of it now? Chinese and Indians.
British Rail - All privatised so it can try and make money. NUR is no more
British Steel - Sheffield, Rotherham, Ravenscraig - all ruined
British Shipbuilders - gone. Just two or three yards left
NCB - Decimated

So some tube drivers go on strike, and postpone the day they lose.

Mind you, it's not just the UK. Look at the US car industry. Fully unionised, and the UAW have negotiated themselves into a position where Detroit is toast.

Did you actually live though any of this, brokerboy?

Look here at what the unions have done to the UK.

Yeah, unions are great.

Originally Posted by jagman

For all those of you out there that believed that British coal was dead because its expensive, the real cost saving from buying Columbian coal was 12 pence a ton. We made tens of thousands unemployed and destroyed whole towns for a few pence.
We still see the knock on effects in many mining towns around the country now. Yeh, sure, most have now some employment in call centres etc but not the good living that was earned 30 years ago.

But where there not more savings from the fact that alot (not all) mines were working at an operating loss of £3mill per annum (figure I heard on Radio 5 so I could very well be wrong)

As for bringing down the rest of manufacturing, was it not the case that most such industries were over employed thanks to the union structure and couldnt adapt to the change? I look at Leyland as an example?

Having lived through the strike as the son of a miner and the nephew of 7 other miners, all from the same pit (New Herrington in the Durham coal field) the strike brings back a lot of bad memories, and a lot of funny ones.

My dad was a sly old git when it came to the unions and strikes, he always went on the sick prior to a vote, and managed to stay on the sick all the way through the 84 strike. Nothing to do with solidarity etc, he just didnt like being told what to do by anyone and had a deep hatred of Scargill.

The dispute saw our village torn apart and even now, some families still have a hatred towards anyone who broke the strike, even grandchildren still fight grandchildren. We saw houses burnt out and families who we knew for years drove out. We saw the "thug" element of the pit workforce turn up each day just for a scrap, nothing to do with scabs or the strike, they wanted a crack at the police. People need to remember, a pit which has a workforce of 3000 and recruits from the age of 17 will always have an element of "yob".

My dad and his brothers agree to this day that the strike was a waste of effort and ruined our villages. They were always goingto close the pits and no amount of civil disobedience would prevent maggie from completing the job. My family were indifferent to the whole thing as they felt that mining was a dirty dangerous underpaid job which no man should have to do unless better rewarded. To many deaths, to much illness.

At school I remember the kids of miner being brought a packed lunch each day from the NUM as we werent entitled to free dinners from the council as we technically werent children of unemployed parents. Most of the packed lunch was usually chucked at the police on the picket lines. You used to see the kids waiting for the scab buses coming in, hurling paint, abuse, rocks etc, you would often see kids shouting abuse at there own relations.

The hardest part was the impact of no coal. We lived in a colliery house which was heated by the fire, no central heating. No coal meant no heat and no hot water - this is 1984 and not 1884 remember. Me being a bit of a scrote those days used to look for anything to keep our fires going, then sell the rest. Many a tree was felled in the local forest, chopped up and sold as logs. Used to give the pensioners it for free though. My Dad and me were both arrested for tresspass whilst sivving coal on the railway sidings, thats how desperate it got. One bonus, the council decided this was the time to replace all the fencing in a nearby estate - most of it ended up in our coal shed.

Looking back with an adult viewpoint, nothing has changed. It was an illegal pointless strike which was more to do with Scargill's ego than the lives of the miners. Our village and other nearby villages are dead now, disrepair and full of scum dole scrounging druggies. When the pit was alive, the community was alive. The heart stopped beating and the body has slowly died away.

I ended up in the army thankfully as after the strike when I left school I was taken to the pit head by my uncle to show me the score, I took one look and said I would prefer to be shot at in NI than go down there!!!! Never looked back since.

At the time of the miner's strike of 84 I was married into a mining family. They mostly didn't live in pit villages because they had been displaced by an earlier strike in the Barnsley Coal Fields (deliberately being vague). There was six brothers 5 of whom worked down the mine and my FIL who worked on the surface. All the brothers had been in the pit yard for a strike meeting but one of them, the youngest was not on shift and had been in the pub so he turned up half cut. When the vote came to strike the youngest brother hadn't put his hand up because he was p1ssed and because there was an overwhelming majority. A miner near him grabbed his arm and told him to raise his feckin' arm. Being 3 sheets, junior pulled his arm away. The next thing there are 3 miners beeting the carp out of junior so the other 4 brothers leapt in and extracted Junior cracking a few heads on the way.
All 5 brothers were NUM through and through and all had decided they wanted to strike and it was Junior being drunk and stupid which had started the trouble. Unfortunately by then word had flown round the village that they were all scabs and bricks started coming through their windows. The upshot was that they moved to the Derbyshire pits which were, at that time, a bit more moderate. At the time of the 84 strike they all had cars, two had 2 cars, they all went on holidays abroad and the eldest had bought a villa in Toremolinas. By anyone's standards they were well off, certainly much better off than a young soldier with two kids who was getting income support.
They didn't want the '84 strike for many reasons, they realised that they were well paid compared to many and that the last pay rise had been very generous to compensate for the dangerous nature of their job. They also realised that most pits are in a constant state of repair with water being pumped out continuously together with a hundred other bits of machinary which needed constant care and attention. They knew about the coal stockpiles and they knew the strike would most likely be a long one but most thought they could win. One of my wife's uncles at the time said that most pits would become unworkable if left unattended for more than 4 weeks but Arthur assured them all they could win. Even six months down the line he assured them they could win when he knew that they wouldn't, for his own political and personal ends he kept the miners out for another 6 months and in doing so ensured that most of the mines would never open again.

Originally Posted by drain_sniffer

Originally Posted by jagman

For all those of you out there that believed that British coal was dead because its expensive, the real cost saving from buying Columbian coal was 12 pence a ton. We made tens of thousands unemployed and destroyed whole towns for a few pence.
We still see the knock on effects in many mining towns around the country now. Yeh, sure, most have now some employment in call centres etc but not the good living that was earned 30 years ago.

But where there not more savings from the fact that alot (not all) mines were working at an operating loss of £3mill per annum (figure I heard on Radio 5 so I could very well be wrong)

As for bringing down the rest of manufacturing, was it not the case that most such industries were over employed thanks to the union structure and couldnt adapt to the change? I look at Leyland as an example?

Sure the industry needed modernising, some pits were operating at a loss but nowhere near as many as you would think.
I'd have to look up the figures but one pit in West Cumbria that springs to mind was "modernised" after the strike and consequently production cut by two thirds. It closed less than two years later as it was inefficient and unprofitable. It was deliberatly made so to justify closure. Hundreds of other pits went the same way. Nothing basically wrong with them and very productive pits, just politically expedient to get rid.
Similar applies to all heavy industry like steel and shipbuilding.
Maggie was completely right to break the unions, she was completly wrong to follow that up with getting rid of heavy industry.
Once the unions were on the backfoot then rationalisation and genuine modernisation would have left the country with a good footing. Instead of taking that oppurtunity Maggie chose to put the knife in and finish off heavy industry for good.
Now we are facing energy shortages we will have to start all over again, once we led the world but Scargill and Thatcher destoyed it. 3 million unemployed paid the price, so did their children.
Now we must pay.

If it showed one thing, its that the blue collar working man will never really be a winner. No matter what he does. Even as a civilian, your still just a number.

The miners strikes, looking back, seems like a bit of a no brainer. Especially with enough coal reserves on the surface and at around the same time most of the big oilfields coming online in the North sea.

I was a bairn in this era and witnessed the closure of swanhunters and most the other yards along the tyne. It ruins communities, you just have to look at some of the areas around north shields or durham to see that. Dole wallas and layabouts is quite an acurate description. An industry doing well, is the ilegal drug industry!

The only heavy industry the UK has left is oil and gas, and to be honest thats not looking too clever at the minute either.

To me the miners strikes looks like a massive ego battle between Scargill and Thatcher, with the losers being the miners.

Originally Posted by drain_sniffer

Arthur Scargil was the last in the breed of "you cant touch me Im part of the Union " Bde that brought the country almost to its knees in the 70's.

The NUM didn't bring the country to its knees in the 70s. It put the country on its back. In so doing the NUM established itself as the most powerful union in the country.

Originally Posted by drain_sniffer

He was a man who believed in his own destiny

Too true. Having consolidated his position within the NUM (he was to become president for life shortly after the strike) he believed that his destiny lay beyond the trade union movement.

At the start of the strike, when he was still confident of victory, he stated that he would not rest until 'the red flag of revolutionary socialism flies over 10 Downing Street'. Today, that sounds like first class tw@ttery. During the 70s, a lot of serious politicians including Tony Benn, Patricia Hewitt and John Reid saw communism as the way ahead with Britain becoming a satellite state of the Soviet Union. Arthur viewed himself as just the man to become a ginger Stalin, president for life of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Britain.

Arthur already had a seat on Labour's ruling National Executive Committee but, in the early eighties, it looked like Labour might collapse completely and never form another government.

Doing a Mandelson and working his way into cabinet via the shadow cabinet and a seat in the Lords might never be possible. In Arthur's deluded, power crazed mind, a mighty strike would paralyse the country like the Luftwaffe never could and his flying pickets, providing a latter day Red Guard, would carry him on their shoulders into No 10.

Unfortunately for Arthur, Maggie had other ideas. She consistently outmanoeuvred him and, unlike previous governments, she brought the full power of the state, including MI5 and Special Branch, to bear against the hapless miners.

After being beaten by Maggie, Arthur was beaten by his own members who broke away to form the UDM. In 1994, he was ousted from the NEC and Tony Blair got him out of the Labour Party altogether in 1997.

Still dreaming of winning an election, being called to Buckingham Palace to receive the seals of office and telling the Queen that she's fired, Arthur formed the Socialist Labour Party in 1997. Since then, he's never failed to lose his deposit when standing in an election. 12 years on, his party is little more than a web site.

Even the NUM gave him the boot in 2002, buying him of with an 800 pounds a week pension funded by his members, some of whom are now living in poverty. More champaign Arthur? All that remains now is for Arthur to do the decent thing and pop his clogs before Maggie does.

OK tinfoil hat firmly on..... Who reckons the pit closures back then were to preserve supplies for future generations ? Oils not gonna last for ever is it ? Scargill even visited that eco camp at Kingsnorth power station recently to try & convince the crustys theres enough coal under our feet to carry the UK through once oil runs dry & its probally our last hope along with nuke power. The strike did tho do wonders for recruiting into HMF. I served with many ex miners at the end of the 80s.

LT