The Miners' Strike 1984: The Battle for Britain

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Interesting program.

I grew up in a mining town in South Yorkshire. My friends dads were miners.

My dad ran one of the two estate agents and grandfather on my dad’s side a GP, on my mums side a retired miner. The strike affected everyone in the community

This area has long memories and at least one ex Pitt village were burning effigies of Margaret Thatcher on the night she died.

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JagLover said:

Alickadoo said:

The miners shouldn't have been at Orgreave in the first place. It wasn't a mine. It was a gas coking works.

The picketing miners shouldn't have been allowed to stop honest people from going to work.

Yes it wasn't a mine and the workers who worked there were steel workers who were not on strike and in fact wanted regular deliveries of coal to keep everything running as otherwise parts of the plant may have been damaged.

So it was actually a blockade of infrastructure elsewhere and so really came down to a question of who governed Britain not the rights of workers to strike.

So run around cracking heads open?

It's an interesting topic in general. My wife, who is quite socialist generally thinks Maggie Thatcher is great because she squashed the miners and was from down south so just saw the news. I was a child, but looking back think her stance very much suited the politics of the day and she wanted outright confrontation.

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bern said:

Apologies if I've missed it but what channel is this on?

Channel 4 I think

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Alickadoo said:

ChocolateFrog said:

I grew up in a pit village in SY. Virtually all my friends dad's were miners.

I was baby at the time so obviously don't remember that but I do remember the poverty and resentment that followed.

I also remember the parties when she died. Its sad that so many lives have been blighted to this day, surely there was a better way.

The poverty and resentment was caused by the miners going on strike. A self inflicted injury.

"surely there was a better way". Obviously - don't go on strike.

This isn't difficult.

Meanwhile the police were paying off their mortgages on the overtime earned.

I think the media were very divisive. There are a lot of ‘simple’ statements like this, but actually the reality is it was not simple at the time.

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Jordie Barretts sock said:

Didn't the Nottingamshire miners keep working and formed the UDM? The Union of Democratic Miners?

How much bad feeling did that cause?

I thought that came later in the dispute, but I was young so am easily wrong on this.

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BigMon said:

Vasco said:

I can't recall the detail but I'm pretty sure that government help was given to the affected areas. The whole sorry situation was created by Scargill's arrogant and uncompromising approach to something that was simply a natural progression, due to reduced demand for coal.

How else could any government handle reduced coal demand other than to continue to steadily close down pits ?

I don't know but I can tell you Sheffield and South Yorkshire were very negatively affected by steel and pit closures.

Whatever was done to help it wasn't enough or the plan was flawed.

I don't have answers, and I'm not defending Scargill or the NUM at all, but I'm not just writing off the human cost.

It does seem those who were around the areas understand a little more than those who were not.

Scargill did no favours for sure, but got a foot in for a reason.

And whole areas were blighted as a result.

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Miners were told that it was the end of their jobs. In fact, for many it probably was. These hard gritty underground workers were not well suited to work in a call center that would not exist for many years. They saw their futures destroyed, as was the future of their children and community as virtually every job was at least partly reliant on the mine or income from minors.

It would be decades before these areas saw massive investment, and even then the jobs are often relatively low-paid call centre-type jobs.

I once had a call from a property investor who had bought a commercial property in Goldthorpe on a whim, because it was less than £50k at auction. He had overpaid because if you drove down Goldthorpe High Street you would have found a desolate wind-strewn place that even charity shops shied away from. It's a little better now, but still not a booming place.

These men were used to working in uncomfortable, horrible working environments. In short, they were hard men staring down a future of gloom and no work and were sold a dream by Scargill and they were desperate.

It's an ugly part of the UK's history. But an important one.

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Kids (because tha's how you are acting), this is the TV section. If you want to make a big row about who can comment on what, respect what, and what or not is homophobic (bit left field in this subject but it is what it is), the News Politics and other argumentative soles are available at https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/forum.asp?h=0&...

Meanwhile can we get back on topic which was a program around The Minders strike and inevitable consequential debate around that topic.

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FiF said:

Jordie Barretts sock said:

Because it was a steel coking plant.

The NUM wanted to bring the steel workers out as well. So they started picketing British Steel.

It was Scargill doing his dirty best to bring about a National Strike by nefarious means. Trouble was, nobody not even his own miners had an appetite for it.

In 70s the miners had effectively destroyed the Heath government with what were termed flying pickets, basically picketing other than their own place of work. Heath government backed down because of real fears for individual safety of police and pickets such was the aggression. They even backed off bringing the army in to support getting lorries through driven by volunteers.

Govt eventually agreed to the requested 27% pay increase only for that to be rejected and miners requested another £1 per week on top. Eventually a deal was struck buy the miners had made an enemy of the Conservative party.

Thatcher wasn't having that and some legislation was brought in 1980 and 1982 to stop picketing other firms and places of work. That legislation has been tightened more and more over the years.

The NUM organised a picket at Orgreave claiming it was to stop lorries bringing coal from non striking areas and thus harming their employers. In reality it was to stop coke from Orgreave being delivered to British Steel Shorpe. Thus there was an attempt at disagreement around the legality, though as the picketed site wasn't NCB but BSC ie not their employer it was clearly illegal.

At first there was an attempt to shepherd the miners away, sort of kettling. However the miners responded with violence, the famous photo on that evening news of the miner taking a flying drop kick at a police officer. It quickly became a riot, no other word for it, unacceptable violence on both sides to be perfectly honest.

As discussed up thread, for many reasons this was a strike the NUM couldn't win, and tbh couldn't be allowed to win.

The biggest downside is that it took a long time for help to come to communities that previously depended upon mining and opportunities devastated. Clearly many got on their bikes to quote Tebbit, too many did not.

I had married a miner's daughter a few years before the strike. Her Dad had seen the way the wind was blowing, got some qualifications and went into teaching in higher education.

I recall one of the town councillors who came to Mexborough Comprehensive to give a speech to parents - I can't remember the event. But my parents were struck by his advice that if you want to make anything out of your kids, you should get out of the Dearne Valley. Given that was the view of one of the indiviudals who was supposed to be looking after the region, they actually did take his advice.