Na then Forest.....

[ucandomagic]

OK - I wasn’t involved directly in the strikes but this was my era. Scargill, who I met twice, was a fucking dinosaur who, like Putin, was willing to sacrifice his people to achieve his own glorification. He could not see, and didn’t care, that the world was changing.

Thatcher was the opposite, but the same. She saw clearly where the world was going and didn’t give a fuck who she destroyed North of Grantham in getting us there.

Everybody sees the world, and especially the past, in a way that supports their own views. People like Scargill & Thatcher exploit that, and the rest of us get truly fucked in between.

Magic is Knowing You’re Not Always Right

 

[SheepdipBlade]

I can't speak on that side, as i said. My point was that the areas are much transformed and improved.

That rather depends on how you define "improved". I'd fully accept they're prettier, but the loss of community cohesion and the spike in suicides it took to get to where we are one hell of a price to pay.

 

[originaltrueblade]

There were hardships like no one who didn’t witness it could ever have imagined. Sending the cops up from London to beat the
Strikers and I mean beat physically beat them because our cops wouldn’t do it, . This was a deliberate revenge tactic to what happened in the seventies.
The trade union movement through the country helped feed the strikers my union ASLEF raised loads.

A footnote Maybe we are being screwed all over again today and maybe we ain’t seen nothing yet

 

[SwissBlade]

That rather depends on how you define "improved". I'd fully accept they're prettier, but the loss of community cohesion and the spike in suicides it took to get to where we are one hell of a price to pay.

Undoubtedly.

But transforming industrial areas into a open green spaces is also proven to have a positive effect on an area and a community.

(Ironically some of these areas are now being used to stick huge solar farms on them)

 

[SheepdipBlade]

Undoubtedly.

But transforming industrial areas into a open green spaces is also proven to have a positive effect on an area and a community.

(Ironically some of these areas are now being used to stick huge solar farms on them)

True, though my experience has been that the open spaces benefit the generation that followed rather than those who lost their jobs in the pits. Some of that is just time - it takes years to turn a slag heap into a countryside park - and some cultural - the older generation had their own pastimes and didn't really need a new park.

It's the age old question about gentrification and who ate the winners and losers it creates.

Interestingly our (now Tory) MP is trying his hardest to stop a solar farm near here so gentrification has taken that next step into nimbyism.

 

[Moan? Nope-I saw Longhorn]

Transformed certainly - but at a great social cost. I vividly remember the Wath Valley filling with telesales warehouses full of ex miners trying to sell conservatories and double glazing because some boffin had identified the S Yorkshire accent as being the most trustworthy, plain speaking and intelligible in Britain.

So from being part of communities and an industry with a long a proud history, these men found themselves cold calling people like desperate second hand car salesmen.

Transformed - yes. But improved??

Aye,
& those (& their families & subsequent generations) could / can enjoy the newly created “outdoor spaces such as the trans pennine way, lakes, woodlands” if they didn’t / don’t have a job
Oh and the housing that’s “affordable” , if you’ve got a job that pays enough to “afford” a mortgage, because, of course, mining communities didn’t have access to such luxuries, oh, apart from those provided by ‘the pit’ itself.

 

[Cheets]

Scargill always reminded me of Punch of Punch and Judy fame
words he never used in negotiation were reason or compromise
he was just full on confrontational
I was brought up like a lot in Sheffield as Labour but I think men like Scargill took away the integrity
and ran the NUM as a dictatorship
I dont think unions in general have recovered from the damage he did
He put me off seeing Labour as credible by using socialist idealogy for his own self promotion

I don't understand why Scargill put you off seeing Labour as credible? He saw the Labour leadership at the time as bitter enemies and he quit the party decades ago to form the SLP.

 

[nopigfansintown]

`This area still hasn’t recovered from the vengeful and deliberate destruction of it by Thatcher and her boot boys.
If you feel she destroyed the mining industry and proud mining communities as an environmentally friendly act for the country, you are more delusional than any of our friends across the city.
She chose to the destroy the industry and more importantly century old communities to teach the enemy within a lesson.
`There was no strategic plan to reinvest in those communities, and they were just left to rot and die.The only plan was to kill the area off, and make vast fortunes for her cronies out of playing the stock market, and giving them cheap shares to profit from by privatising national assets which didn’t belong to her.The rest of us could rot in our own cheap call centres..

Quite. I'm from a long line of miners. From my great grandfather to my own father who married a Sheffield lass. These men were the backbone of the country as were the unions which founded the Labour Party via Welsh miner Keir Hardie and the the Unions that predated it. Everything good about this country was fought for by these men - a long time before Maggie Thatcher came along. Thatcher and her cronies deindustrialised Britain and left us with a corpse of a country lagging far behind the likes of Germany which, incidentally, lost two world wars whilst gaining its hegemony - due largely to its industrial base and more equitably mixed economy. We are tied to the financial sector and service industries now, to such an extent that the speculators can effectively bankrupt the country with no real repercussions (see 2008).

Everything is imported: no primary and very little secondary industries to speak of. If you can pay them starvation wages in outer Mongolia import it:- neo liberal globalisation runs this circus. The working classes of Britain can work in call centres and Amazon warehouses where they have backbreaking toilets so you don't dare take more than three minutes having a shit. Progress you see. It's far better than this in the opencast mines that still exist today for your information - my dad has worked in them for the last thirty years. My old man earns £19 an hour plus bonuses and does 35 hours per week. My dad was always moaning about the deep miners (when some remained) because those in the remaining deep mines in Britain earned far more than him.

My grandfather worked in the deep mines and was based in Swallownest. He kept a family of eight on his miner's salary. My grandmother never worked as she didn't have too. The job was dirty and hardly safe, but it paid well. He was involved in the Beighton Colliery disaster in 1958 - shattering his leg https://www.bbc.co.uk/southyorkshire/content/articles/2004/10/22/beighton_miners_feature.shtml . stringer might be interested to know that his picture was on the front of the Star grimacing in the cage. He'd dodged bullets in Germany not long before and walked with a limp for the rest of his life after the disaster. In some ways the job was brutal: after smashing his leg to smithereens the rent collector still came to the door for the rent for his pit house on the "White City" - the following Monday. My gran walked several miles down to the pit (kids in tow) to have it out with the gaffer. He was subsequently given an on site office job for the rest of his career by the mine. You see, they looked after their own: the men wouldn't let it be that their mate was laid off because he was incapacitated. The gaffers knew that it'd be folly to even attempt something like that. He was at pains to point that out in the 1980s

When the miner's strike happened he hated the Scabs far more than he hated the Germans that had tried to kill him. He saw them as being beneath contempt. Class traitors. The enemy of their own communities and their own children. Incidentally, when the miners strike was going on my mother was working in Sheffield cop shop. Her opinion of Orgreave is that a de facto army was shipped in from around the country to deal with the miners. She's given witness testimony to that effect. These brave and hardy men who went into the bowels of the earth to power Britain's post war recovery were set upon by a right wing army that essentially wanted to beat them into submission like one would an invading army. Thatcher was willing to change the equitability of Britain's whole economy to break the possibility of working class men getting a decent wage, for a hard days graft.

Thatcher's attack on the miners was ideological. The goal was to break the back of British Unions and class solidarity. To create a society of individuals looking after number one. Her legacy is crime, drugs, poverty, lower real terms wages, reduced union membership, higher real terms public service costs (and lower quality), far higher real terms housing and rent prices and far less expendable income for working class people. Also a lack of community cohesion and neighbourliness. The current commodity crisis powering Russia is a legacy of her lack of foresight. The Labour leaders in power that followed Thatcher were Thatcherites. This is Thatcher's Britain.

Oh and Scab is a stain that can never be erased from Nottingham. The two good things associated with Nottingham come from Yorkshire: Robin Hood and Brian Clough.

Lady Macbeth on Nottingham:

“Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!”​

 

[Cheets]

Calling Forest 'scabs' is a bit daft really as a lot of Notts pits were as near to Sheffield as they were to Nottingham. That said, we chant "Hate fucking cockneys" to Fulham, and "sheep-shaggers" to Swansea despite a large section of Sheffield sitting within the Peak District.

 

[dublin 10 blade]

I had the luxury - like most on here - of witnessing the unions abusing their privilege and duty to workers they represent in the 1970s. It was they who gave us the three day week, blackouts, the collapse of the Heath government, the strong-arming of the Callaghan administration into the dismal Winter of Discontent. It was they who gave us Thatcher, it was they who corrupted the Labour Party with militants and extended her reign just like Corbyn has given us Johnson and his bulletproof grip on power now.

Scargill was socialism's last death rattle and unfortunately it took a lot of unfortunate, grafting, decent individuals with it. He was a vainglorious, hypocritical, deluded bastard who failed in his duty to achieve universal consensus to strike, and as said, then went on to weaponise those people he claimed to represent in a civil war against the tory government and it's enforcement methods. The mining industry was a sucking black hole of economic doom, and had been for decades. He tried to use those people for political gain, not for their rights to keep working in an industry which was finished. And he failed ... and failed those poor fuckers whose lives he impoverished and wrecked. He also finished the union movement too. Reform was badly needed and inevitable.

So aligning our dismal failures against a far better football team is pathetic. Dragging deep-seated hatreds and misconceived opinions forward is similarly daft, especially when the outcomes of Thatcher's period in power saw the country stabilise and grow and eventually shift track from loss making manufacturing to profitable services. And before people start, we would be nowhere with regard competitive advantage if we'd continued in the manufacturing industries of the past. Coal, for example, was 25% more expensive than overseas sources and the steel industry, something very close to all our hearts, was being outstripped on every front by Scandinavian and far eastern imports.

pommpey

Some good , some bad , some Bollox in that post Pommpey
6 out of 10

 

[Moan? Nope-I saw Longhorn]

That rather depends on how you define "improved". I'd fully accept they're prettier, but the loss of community cohesion and the spike in suicides it took to get to where we are one hell of a price to pay

Aye,
Plus the apocalyptic residue & (human) detritus of many of those villages & communities now (conveniently) hidden (bypassed) by new infrastructure’ that allows a pleasant journey from Barnsley to Donny without having to witness, let alone visit, places like Goldthorpe.
Not dissing the place mind, good source of cheap ‘smack’ - another benefit of the ‘free market’ for you

 

[Yellarbellyblade]

Only my opinion but I always felt that Thatcher and Scargill were flip sides of the same coin. Neither seemed to really care for the people who fought their “wars” for them and neither could see any need to accommodate the wishes of the other. When you get two diametrically opposed ideologues clashing like they did the people caught in the crossfire would always be the ones to suffer. I’m not from a mining community but my dad’s family are from Scottish Ayrshire mining stock and I worked for many years in mining community areas so I get the depth of feeling here. How long is too long to hold a grudge about it? My dad tells a tale of going to a remote village and asking an old bloke for directions to somewhere in the next village on. The old bloke in all seriousness suggested he shouldn’t go there because they were on the other side in the war, when he queried this it transpired he meant the Civil War! Still got some way to go before forgive and forget is an option.

 

[Blade.com]

I could write small book on this subject. I lived in a mining village where I could see half a dozen pits from my bedroom window. I worked 500 yards from Cortonwood pit and saw all the crap that went off between the Police and striking miners every day, yes they did have the army dressed as Policemen we use to see them changing uniforms inside the vans that where parked on our forecourt.
Everyone of my family& mates worked darn pit and I was the only one working. We all knew working for the NCB was a piss take ( shitty job like) and it was on its last leg. They fell for the old trick of BONUS MONEY for 2 years they blasted output of coal not realising all they where doing was stock piling for what was to come.
When it did come it was bloody hard but nobody went hungry or without, its true how a community can work together when they have too. Men would be coming round with food or clothes or any kind of help required, all anyone had to do was ask , your needs where answered. Personally I didn't get paid as much as miners but I kept all my mates in beer for a year.
The scab thing was orchestrated by managers and lots where offered "Brown" envolopes to break the strike and start the unrest, I think it's that which riled the striking miners up.
Yep everyone knew the time for coal was up but it cost the Government literally millions , there was a mine 1 mile away that had millions of pounds worth of machinery , equipment, clothing , boots and 1 machine costing over a million pound dumped down the shaft before it got filled in , my best mate was in charge of what was dumped, sacrilege it was.
As for us calling them scabs, told this bit on another thread, 3 Forest fans stood in front of me on Saturday screaming and singing " You'll never work again" . Felt like saying, firstly I didn't work for the NCB and secondly I'm now retired so hope I don't have to work again. Seems like they've not forgot about it also.

 

[Andy67]

This whole scab thing. Before my time as I was born in January 1984 but i think it's ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, living at that time must have been horrible and Margeret Thatcher had a lot to answer for but here goes...

Didn't the people of Nottingham "scabs" say that they would strike if the majority voted for a strike? There was no vote so carried on to work. (Correct me if i'm wrong??!?)

Then... I know two people from Sheffield, one of which is a friend of the family and the other works with me, here are their stories from that time...

1 - As there was no coal, my mate went to the woods to get somewood for the fire. He would do this every morning with his friend. He was on strike like the rest of the Sheffield folk. One morning a neighbour saw him leaving his home early doors (going to get wood again) and thought, he's going to work the scab. Later that day he went into the pub and everybody in there had a go calling him a scab etc. and he got his head caved in. He then thought fuck it, i may aswell go back to work then.

2 - Other mates dad was a miner and was on strike. It came down to the point when he had no electricity or gas. They could barely afford to feed the kids and so he made the choice to go back to work as his family needed the money to actually live. He would get pelted with stones from his neighbours every day and had their windows put through on the house. They boarded the windows up and they got kicked in. If he hadn't gone back to work, who knows what would've happened to him and his family. My mate used to get beat everyday at school.

So tell me - are those Sheffielders scabs?

If you can no longer provide for your family and keep a roof over your heads then you have failed one of the most important tasks in life.. But hey, they're only fucking scabs!!

I agree with much of this. I blame the Labour Government that set up the plan for coal originally as this led pits to compete against each other on productivity that favoured rich seams pits. I also blame scargill and the bureaucratic NUM leadership in not having another ballot so that these things could be thrashed out. Finally Notts miners were not scabs as they didn’t go back against a union ballot in which case they weren’t and we need to bear in mind many Notts miners did not go to work as they decided they couldn’t not based on strike action that had a vote but because it was against their views to cross lines. It’s all history so no point discussing it anymore or hatred for Thatcher there are new battles to be one (Tues night for a start)

 

[FallowfieldBlade]

Why do you feel the need to comment on something you obviously know nothing about?

Why do people feel the need to sing abusive songs at fans who more than likely have nothing to do with the miners strike and probably don’t have a clue what there chanting about

The majority of people don’t even know why there chanting scabs

Same goes for the forest jobs who wherr singing sign on when we live a 20 minute drive away

 

[FallowfieldBlade]

Aye
And some of em might be “60 / 70 +” but they are inconsequential, right!

Correct only fans under the age of 59 Matter

 

[Once a Blade..]

Some good , some bad , some Bollox in that post Pommpey
6 out of 10

I’m still looking for the good, Dublin. It’s the right wing perspective personified. For the environmentally friendly Thatcher it had nowt to do with coal but everything to do with smashing the unions which she did and in the process she smashed communities which remain divided to this day. European money may have put a sheen on a few of these places but the division and suffering continues. The most recent study by some geek at Hallam University shows this to be the case. At least we’ve got levelling up agenda to remove some of the inequalities that still exist because of Thatcher’s legacy. The right wing won the day shifted British politics massively to the right and worker’s rights are gone. A scab will always be a scab.

 

[Booker4]

Whereas this here forum is about football, not axes to grind about an ill-informed, and ill-conceived industrial dispute nearly forty years ago, the outcome of which was a fait accompli anyway and basically weaponised working class individuals mired in a doomed industry.

Try to understand that coal mining - Scargill, Thatcher, McGregor or not - would still be over now anyway given it's horrendous footprint on the environment. What happened in 1984-85 was merely a coup de grace which should have happened a decade earlier when the unions crippled this country more than Thatcher ever would.

pommpey

Always enjoyed your views Pompey but I think your post is as confrontational as the OP if honest, maybe that was your intention and I know that this subject is very heated and divided families/communities. Whether you agree with the strike or not, saying the coal industry was going to end anyway given its horrendous footprint is a largely irrelevant point given that at the time coal was produced/needed for many years after its just that Thatcher could get coal cheaper from other countries so that became more desirable/economical and, of course, it was personal between her and Scargill, post what happened to Ted Heath's government. But more importantly lives were ruined by Thatcher far more than Scargill in my view, there was no or little sympathy from Thatcher to ordinary miners in this, it could have been done so much better by her and she knew lives/families were been ruined and families on the bread line.

As you'll know doubt know it has also been released in 2014 from previous cabinet papers that Scargill, for all his ego and failings, was right about the secret list of pit closers which was at 75 and not 20. As for Nottinghamshire mines, I can see why they didn't join in the strike beyond 20% at first and then declining further thereafter. The lack of ballot from Scargill was of course an own goal and unconstitutional for many miners across the country, but I suspect he knew he didn't have the support of all of the nation's miners (based on failed strike attempts years earlier) and therefore if he'd balloted every area it would have only been a partial strike anyway and that would have crippled the strike from the off.

You saying the mines should have closed ten years earlier - that's harsh in my view/shows a lack of empathy as thousands of people's livelihoods were involved in mining, particularly in South Yorkshire and do you honestly think that alternative work would have been provided instead for them and other declining industries? I doubt it and the legacy from Thatcher is one of a finance dependant economy that benefits London, buying in goods not producing them, selling off so many public owned assets which have in my view not improved post private ownership in most if not all instances.

I'll be the first to admit that I didn't live through the strike of 72 and I was 5 in 84 but you don't have to be alive to have a view of history, and Thatcher, for me, it wasn't what she did so much but how she did it and in such a short timeframe, and as I said earlier the lack of support thereafter for the miners in terms of future work was limited at best, and these areas like Grimethorpe were pit dependant even if you didn't work down the pits, the whole towns went downhill thereafter for decades.

Changing tack, it's interesting that there was even less support from Leicestershire mines but we never seem to accuse Leicester of being scabs, and interesting that the Kent pits were as militant for the strikes as the Yorkshire miners were.

I hope you don't find this post critical/personal; your post was well worded even if I disagreed with most of it. I'll no doubt continue to enjoy your posts, you're right that this is a forum for football, but politics do come into football, maybe we shouldn't discuss politics on here, but I actually enjoy an occasional diversion from talking about our usual football failings! Ha ha!

 

[Crafty Blade]

Get a grip and move on eh, nothing worse than hearing some 20 odd years olds shouting it to boot .. Jesus wept.

That's my point, despite the origins of it, it has obviously since been appropriated as a derogatory name for the team and their fans. Nothing really wrong with that.

 

[Deaneandagana]

Always enjoyed your views Pompey but I think your post is as confrontational as the OP if honest, maybe that was your intention and I know that this subject is very heated and divided families/communities. Whether you agree with the strike or not, saying the coal industry was going to end anyway given its horrendous footprint is a largely irrelevant point given that at the time coal was produced/needed for many years after its just that Thatcher could get coal cheaper from other countries so that became more desirable/economical and, of course, it was personal between her and Scargill, post what happened to Ted Heath's government. But more importantly lives were ruined by Thatcher far more than Scargill in my view, there was no or little sympathy from Thatcher to ordinary miners in this, it could have been done so much better by her and she knew lives/families were been ruined and families on the bread line.

As you'll know doubt know it has also been released in 2014 from previous cabinet papers that Scargill, for all his ego and failings, was right about the secret list of pit closers which was at 75 and not 20. As for Nottinghamshire mines, I can see why they didn't join in the strike beyond 20% at first and then declining further thereafter. The lack of ballot from Scargill was of course an own goal and unconstitutional for many miners across the country, but I suspect he knew he didn't have the support of all of the nation's miners (based on failed strike attempts years earlier) and therefore if he'd balloted every area it would have only been a partial strike anyway and that would have crippled the strike from the off.

You saying the mines should have closed ten years earlier - that's harsh in my view/shows a lack of empathy as thousands of people's livelihoods were involved in mining, particularly in South Yorkshire and do you honestly think that alternative work would have been provided instead for them and other declining industries? I doubt it and the legacy from Thatcher is one of a finance dependant economy that benefits London, buying in goods not producing them, selling off so many public owned assets which have in my view not improved post private ownership in most if not all instances.

I'll be the first to admit that I didn't live through the strike of 72 and I was 5 in 84 but you don't have to be alive to have a view of history, and Thatcher, for me, it wasn't what she did so much but how she did it and in such a short timeframe, and as I said earlier the lack of support thereafter for the miners in terms of future work was limited at best, and these areas like Grimethorpe were pit dependant even if you didn't work down the pits, the whole towns went downhill thereafter for decades.

Changing tack, it's interesting that there was even less support from Leicestershire mines but we never seem to accuse Leicester of being scabs, and interesting that the Kent pits were as militant for the strikes as the Yorkshire miners were.

I hope you don't find this post critical/personal; your post was well worded even if I disagreed with most of it. I'll no doubt continue to enjoy your posts, you're right that this is a forum for football, but politics do come into football, maybe we shouldn't discuss politics on here, but I actually enjoy an occasional diversion from talking about our usual football failings! Ha ha!

Scargill entered into a game he couldn’t win, he should have realised this and instead of fighting he should have negotiated a financial & economic regeneration package to secure the future of the mining communities.

There was only ever going to be 1 winner after the Heath Govt was brought down.

 

[Edinblade]

.....you will always be scabs. Your scabby parents or scabby grandparents were vilified for deserting their fellow workers who went through hell to fight for their jobs while your scumbags refused to join the cause and caused a huge rift between the mining community. Some may say that it's "All in the past" or that "It was nothing to do with me". Well that doesn't wash with me. I saw first hand at Orgreave how the mining community stood as one in the face of police violence , orchestrated by Thatcher, and went through months of poverty and extreme hardship. Scab breeds scab, so shame on you all!

I know this isn't a political forum and everyone is entitled to an opinion so here's mine.

Its time to move on. We don't dislike the Germans after the worst abuse of human life ever by previous generations. I know many of the strike breakers will still be alive, but most will be elderly and should be forgiven. I personally hated Scargill and completely disagreed with his politics, tactics and point of view.

Football supporters should also move on. Some of the behaviour over the weekend has brought the whole game into disrepute. Many Liverpool fans at Wembley were their normal disgusting selves showing zero respect, some Everton fans were disgusting expressing racial abuse etc etc.

Folk should relax, enjoy the games for what they are and don't get so upset over results or league position. If we lose tomorrow, so what, it really doesn't matter and there's no need to be abusive towards the winning team or their supporters.

 

[Whiston Blade]

Not to stir the pot further but why do some people call Forest fans scabs yet miners in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire, North Wales and Lancashire all chose to continue working..?

My girlfriends great uncle sadly died early this year, he lived in Hucknall and worked at a few collieries around there including Hucknall #2, Linby and a few others. I really wish I had a chat with him about this, hear his views and experiences, his house was full of plates related to miners and different collieries, I want to say he was also heavily in with the NUM.

 

[Moan? Nope-I saw Longhorn]

Correct only fans under the age of 59 Matter

That’s me fucked then (& probably most of the folk on here that routinely give you pelters ?!?)

‘ Yute ‘of today eh

How many years in the idyllic sunlit uplands you got left ?

 

[LSF]

I don't much contribute to the emotive stuff on here, but as I've some first hand experience on the subject discussed, here goes...

I worked in the mines for 10 years, 1978-88, hence was employed there during the 84-85 strike (coal face craftsman after serving my apprenticeship in the steelworks).
Steel had been decimated by foreign imports and Thatcher had brought in McGregor to cow the steel unions into submission, I went into the coal industry hoping this would secure my work prospects for several more years than in steel.

But of course, she turned McGregor on to the coal industry with a mandate to decimate it.
Don't get me wrong, there have been arguments made by some posters that hold weight and some that haven't a fuckin clue but like to weigh in for arguments sake.
I'll start with the strike itself - I believed in it. I Stayed out the full duration despite having 2 children aged 10 months and 3 years when the strike began and only my wage coming in.
As for Scargill, mixed feelings, a bit too far left for my taste but a great orator and he was prophetic about what subsequently came about. But as some allude to, the sacrifices he expected ordinary men to make were extreme.
Scabs.... Not a term I like to fling about willy nilly. I had some great lads as mates at my pit and one or two went back early. The hardliners had no grey areas, you went back, you were a scab.
I couldn't discriminate as such, there were some horrific cases of debt, poverty, mental health issues, marriage break up threats that all contributed to some going back. These guys had stayed out in some cases 11 months and caved in as a result of reasons above. I couldn't label these people as scabs and totally blank them forever.
Some of course went back because you knew they would, if a poll had been taken at the beginning of the strike as to who would break it, all the favourites were first back...
As for the police...
I was at Orgreave early days, before the real nasty stuff started. It was reasonably good natured and even banter with the cops who were mostly local.
The a sea change occurred, police bussed in in droves, the MET came with an attitude of "we'll sort these northern monkeys out proper". The atmosphere and events turned poisonous and I witnessed stuff that will stay with me forever and made me anti police for years afterwards. The army were certainly involved as one of my workmates spotted his brother who was in the army in a pair of police overalls (no ID number) laying into miners with cosh and riot shield.

All this made us bitter and determined to stick it out as the government turned its entire forces on a group of workers fighting for what we felt was a just cause.

When we were forced back, marching back in to our pit on that first day was such a sad (but proud) event, a defeated army returning home.
Thing were never the same post strike, management had us by the bollocks and twisted them. The atmosphere was awful and I genuinely felt sorry for some of the lads who caved in near the end.
One bloke who was hard line, got changed near me and one morning heard me exchange daily greeting with a guy who had gone back a week or two early. He asked why I was speaking to a scab, I told him to mind his own business and fuck off. He never spoke to me again and labelled me scab lover.
It didn't bother me as he was a cunt anyway so it did me a favour, but that's an example of how it was afterwards.
Our pit reduced capacity by 50% in 88 and closed in 91 under the "economic closure" plan. I went in 88 at 35 years old, thinking I was young enough to find another career elsewhere as I'd got some qualifications at least. Some of the lads had only known pit work and I felt so sorry for those.
In hindsight (and I'm coming up 70 now so do get fucked @Fallowfield Blade) leaving the coal industry did me a huge favour as my work career went onwards and upwards and I achieved stuff I never dreamt I was capable of. Whereas, had the pits survived another generation I may well have stuck there and payed the price health wise as I saw in many of the old timers I'd worked with, they were totally fucked after a lifetime in mining. Life takes many turns and sometimes such turns end up being good ones, this one was for me, but others I know never recovered from losing their jobs.

I'd say these days I'm a moderate, but a Labour man through and through and my feelings towards Thatcher and her ilk have not softened in the intervening years. She was a cow.
Scargill expected (and got) too much from ordinary working men, but give me him over Thatcher any day of the week.

 

[dublin 10 blade]

I’m still looking for the good, Dublin. It’s the right wing perspective personified. For the environmentally friendly Thatcher it had nowt to do with coal but everything to do with smashing the unions which she did and in the process she smashed communities which remain divided to this day. European money may have put a sheen on a few of these places but the division and suffering continues. The most recent study by some geek at Hallam University shows this to be the case. At least we’ve got levelling up agenda to remove some of the inequalities that still exist because of Thatcher’s legacy. The right wing won the day shifted British politics massively to the right and worker’s rights are gone. A scab will always be a scab.

Very little good if I’m honest but play the ball not the man as they say in GAA

 

[Moan? Nope-I saw Longhorn]

I can't speak on that side, as i said. My point was that the areas are much transformed and improved.

Aye
Cos there were no streams, rivers, lakes trees or flowers afore the demonic pits.

Folk used to say’ I remember when it were all fields round ere’
Now it’s ‘I remember when it were all pits round ere’

As long as it looks ‘nice’ we’ll be reyt

 

[dublin 10 blade]

Not being a smart Arse here
But we call Forest “ scabs “
But can Pommpey tell us all why
Pompey fans refer to Southampton fans as
“ Scummers “
It’s one of the reasons I’ve not bought the
The Scum paper as a printer by trade , I can’t see how electricians from Southampton can print a fucking paper

 

[sitwell]

Pains me to agree with you, but I do. Totally.
The mining industry was basically shafting the country right up the arse to the neck vertebrae, and needed a dose of reality, which it got.
Thatcher doing it was incidental, and yes I agree there may have been a huge dose of "fuck the working class" from her that's made the hatred for her reverberate down labour class generation's till this day, but it was needed.
Scargill was a fucking tool.
As for the whole scab thing, it's like Wednesday still harking on about being in Europe and having 600'000'000 fans on the kop at every game. No one under 30 experienced or can speak of it like they were there.
Sorry Fred, but I won't be investing and I'm oot. :/

The under 30s who hate the tories for the pits closing are the same ones who who hate fracking. Any excuse to hate something.

 

[Cheesebored]

I don't much contribute to the emotive stuff on here, but as I've some first hand experience on the subject discussed, here goes...

I worked in the mines for 10 years, 1978-88, hence was employed there during the 84-85 strike (coal face craftsman after serving my apprenticeship in the steelworks).
Steel had been decimated by foreign imports and Thatcher had brought in McGregor to cow the steel unions into submission, I went into the coal industry hoping this would secure my work prospects for several more years than in steel.

But of course, she turned McGregor on to the coal industry with a mandate to decimate it.
Don't get me wrong, there have been arguments made by some posters that hold weight and some that haven't a fuckin clue but like to weigh in for arguments sake.
I'll start with the strike itself - I believed in it. I Stayed out the full duration despite having 2 children aged 10 months and 3 years when the strike began and only my wage coming in.
As for Scargill, mixed feelings, a bit too far left for my taste but a great orator and he was prophetic about what subsequently came about. But as some allude to, the sacrifices he expected ordinary men to make were extreme.
Scabs.... Not a term I like to fling about willy nilly. I had some great lads as mates at my pit and one or two went back early. The hardliners had no grey areas, you went back, you were a scab.
I couldn't discriminate as such, there were some horrific cases of debt, poverty, mental health issues, marriage break up threats that all contributed to some going back. These guys had stayed out in some cases 11 months and caved in as a result of reasons above. I couldn't label these people as scabs and totally blank them forever.
Some of course went back because you knew they would, if a poll had been taken at the beginning of the strike as to who would break it, all the favourites were first back...
As for the police...
I was at Orgreave early days, before the real nasty stuff started. It was reasonably good natured and even banter with the cops who were mostly local.
The a sea change occurred, police bussed in in droves, the MET came with an attitude of "we'll sort these northern monkeys out proper". The atmosphere and events turned poisonous and I witnessed stuff that will stay with me forever and made me anti police for years afterwards. The army were certainly involved as one of my workmates spotted his brother who was in the army in a pair of police overalls (no ID number) laying into miners with cosh and riot shield.

All this made us bitter and determined to stick it out as the government turned its entire forces on a group of workers fighting for what we felt was a just cause.

When we were forced back, marching back in to our pit on that first day was such a sad (but proud) event, a defeated army returning home.
Thing were never the same post strike, management had us by the bollocks and twisted them. The atmosphere was awful and I genuinely felt sorry for some of the lads who caved in near the end.
One bloke who was hard line, got changed near me and one morning heard me exchange daily greeting with a guy who had gone back a week or two early. He asked why I was speaking to a scab, I told him to mind his own business and fuck off. He never spoke to me again and labelled me scab lover.
It didn't bother me as he was a cunt anyway so it did me a favour, but that's an example of how it was afterwards.
Our pit reduced capacity by 50% in 88 and closed in 91 under the "economic closure" plan. I went in 88 at 35 years old, thinking I was young enough to find another career elsewhere as I'd got some qualifications at least. Some of the lads had only known pit work and I felt so sorry for those.
In hindsight (and I'm coming up 70 now so do get fucked @Fallowfield Blade) leaving the coal industry did me a huge favour as my work career went onwards and upwards and I achieved stuff I never dreamt I was capable of. Whereas, had the pits survived another generation I may well have stuck there and payed the price health wise as I saw in many of the old timers I'd worked with, they were totally fucked after a lifetime in mining. Life takes many turns and sometimes such turns end up being good ones, this one was for me, but others I know never recovered from losing their jobs.

I'd say these days I'm a moderate, but a Labour man through and through and my feelings towards Thatcher and her ilk have not softened in the intervening years. She was a cow.
Scargill expected (and got) too much from ordinary working men, but give me him over Thatcher any day of the week.

Great post.

 

[Once a Blade..]

Always enjoyed your views Pompey but I think your post is as confrontational as the OP if honest, maybe that was your intention and I know that this subject is very heated and divided families/communities. Whether you agree with the strike or not, saying the coal industry was going to end anyway given its horrendous footprint is a largely irrelevant point given that at the time coal was produced/needed for many years after its just that Thatcher could get coal cheaper from other countries so that became more desirable/economical and, of course, it was personal between her and Scargill, post what happened to Ted Heath's government. But more importantly lives were ruined by Thatcher far more than Scargill in my view, there was no or little sympathy from Thatcher to ordinary miners in this, it could have been done so much better by her and she knew lives/families were been ruined and families on the bread line.

As you'll know doubt know it has also been released in 2014 from previous cabinet papers that Scargill, for all his ego and failings, was right about the secret list of pit closers which was at 75 and not 20. As for Nottinghamshire mines, I can see why they didn't join in the strike beyond 20% at first and then declining further thereafter. The lack of ballot from Scargill was of course an own goal and unconstitutional for many miners across the country, but I suspect he knew he didn't have the support of all of the nation's miners (based on failed strike attempts years earlier) and therefore if he'd balloted every area it would have only been a partial strike anyway and that would have crippled the strike from the off.

You saying the mines should have closed ten years earlier - that's harsh in my view/shows a lack of empathy as thousands of people's livelihoods were involved in mining, particularly in South Yorkshire and do you honestly think that alternative work would have been provided instead for them and other declining industries? I doubt it and the legacy from Thatcher is one of a finance dependant economy that benefits London, buying in goods not producing them, selling off so many public owned assets which have in my view not improved post private ownership in most if not all instances.

I'll be the first to admit that I didn't live through the strike of 72 and I was 5 in 84 but you don't have to be alive to have a view of history, and Thatcher, for me, it wasn't what she did so much but how she did it and in such a short timeframe, and as I said earlier the lack of support thereafter for the miners in terms of future work was limited at best, and these areas like Grimethorpe were pit dependant even if you didn't work down the pits, the whole towns went downhill thereafter for decades.

Changing tack, it's interesting that there was even less support from Leicestershire mines but we never seem to accuse Leicester of being scabs, and interesting that the Kent pits were as militant for the strikes as the Yorkshire miners were.

I hope you don't find this post critical/personal; your post was well worded even if I disagreed with most of it. I'll no doubt continue to enjoy your posts, you're right that this is a forum for football, but politics do come into football, maybe we shouldn't discuss politics on here, but I actually enjoy an occasional diversion from talking about our usual football failings! Ha ha!

The under 30s who hate the tories for the pits closing are the same ones who who hate fracking. Any excuse to hate something.

A bit like you hating the under 30’s who hate tories or you hating the anti-frackers, Sitwell?