Miners Strike 1984 - The Battle for Britain...

some shocking personal stories on this programme...

well worth a watch.

Thousands of Miners fighting to stay in work to pay mortgages.
Thousands of Police sat in transit vans on overtime for a year paid off mortgages in a year.
First thing Thatcher done when she got in power was big pay rises to the police and army.
The amount of police and ARMY at Orgreave was a fckin scandal.

It was decent but should have been a whole lot better.....That was a War the programme makers did not do it justice imo.

there are 3 episodes in total i think acey..

it's more about the people stories imv...

i enjoyed episode 1 anyway.

Worth a watch but i am sure a couple of Miners got killed on the Picket Line and didn't even get a mention or did i miss that?

Scargill had no Mortgage Payment Problems ,has he Still got the Paid for Luxury flat in London as well as his Detached house ?

I remember Met police taunting miners on the picket line by waving ten pound notes at them. A day in the pit would have broke those Met officers.

Coal Miners back in the Day has to be one of the worst Jobs going/

Was a dying industry ,UK prices undercut world Wide , should have been phased out over a period of Years Perhaps a couple of Decades  , Horrible Job , done by very hard working men  it was their Lives and Fathers Lives ...

Maggie Thunberg , would be a hero among the Climate  Lefties these days

I've been down 2 working pits, including Fanny pit at Rothwell . Face work was often uncomfortable and hard, many other jobs no harder than most tbf, one of my pals was a pit electrician.

casemoney30 Jan 24 20:41Joined: 04 Aug 06 | Topic/replies: 58,347 | Blogger: casemoney's blog
Scargill had no Mortgage Payment Problems ,has he Still got the Paid for Luxury flat in London as well as his Detached house ?

A tough life being a trotskyist, i bet the railway union bosses are really struggling as well.

My dad was working down a pit when he was 14 in the Rhondda Valley, moved to Gloucester when he was 18 to be a forester and work in the fresh air, said to me, "don't ever work down a mine, the worst job in the world."

So what did your dad mean stewarts.....That the worst job in the world did not have strong enough union representation?

Don't even think they had unions then Sparrow, he just meant working underground, seeing no daylight, collapses, the older blokes getting really bad lungs etc, he was very glad to get out. This would have been around 1928-30.

stewarts, The General Strike began in 1926 as a result of a miners strike and their union had existed since the 1800s.

My old man worked down the pit 43 years he used to say to me 'no son of mine  is ever going to work down the the pit and if you turn up at the managers office looking for a job i will tell him not to give it you'.
He died 3 years ago aged 95 and even then he would say  'would go back down tommorrow' when i said why? he would reply not for the work but he missed the characters,comradeship and the good crack.
His Father died at age 67 from miners lung after being down for 47years and my gran was paid £37 compensation in 1965 after a post mortem confirmed the condition.

Not good viewing and hard times proud men relying on hand outs,but it had to happen imo….

Underground working in filthy unhealthy conditions

One thing it gives is the stance Thatcher would have taken against the dinghy incomers invading the country….

There is a great film Called 'The Cumberland Story' on the British film institute website about mining in the 40's.

And what would Oliver Cromwell have done FFS

Families still in the huff since the eighties ffs……why !

Come and listen you fellows, so young and so fine
And seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mine
It will form as a habit and seep in your soul
Till the stream of your blood is as dark as the coal

It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
Where the danger is double and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's as dark as a dungeon way down in the mine

Just the first part of Dark As A Dungeon (Down In The Mine) and a song by Merle Travis that sums up what the job was like, my maternal grandfather made his fortune from coal mines but started at the pit face when he was 14 years old. He was long retired by the time of the strike but he hated Scargill and viewed him as a crook lining his own pockets whilst giving the impression he was a Socialist.

Working Down Pit or in an Abattoir i would rather die ffs

Love my Bacon Sandwitch though.

1830 states that Maggie gave big pay rises to the Police and the Army when she got the job, he was obviously in neither or he would know how poorly paid they were in the first place, worse than the miners btw.

acey deucy 31 Jan 24 12:02 
Working Down Pit or in an Abattoir i would rather die ffs

Ditto…

CagliariG 31 Jan 24 12:17 
1830 states that Maggie gave big pay rises to the Police and the Army when she got the job, he was obviously in neither or he would know how poorly paid they were in the first place, worse than the miners btw.




Can you supply the figures rearding Police Pay as opposed to miners for this claim?

*regarding

Not off hand sparrow but it was below the private sector in most cases.

''Not going down 'tt' pit''.
A great line by Billy Casper in 'Kes'

scargill was a socialist revolutionary and used his postion to try and further his own ends

he was desperate for action and wouldnt allow his members a vote on striking in case they made the wrong decision. this is one reason it caused such bitter division. some miners resented strike by presidential diktat, which is what it was

he of course was well-paid and had a fat pension and grace and favour flat in london and risked and lost nothing, unlike his members who paid for him to play politics

Jan 31, 2024 -- 12:33PM, mitolo wrote:

scargill was a socialist revolutionary and used his postion to try and further his own endshe was desperate for action and wouldnt allow his members a vote on striking in case they made the wrong decision. this is one reason it caused such bitter division. some miners resented strike by presidential diktat, which is what it washe of course was well-paid and had a fat pension and grace and favour flat in london and risked and lost nothing, unlike his members who paid for him to play politics

A bit like Mick Lynch ?

compare the miners with junior doctors, need vs greed!

Almost as bad if not worse was Mick McGahey whom my grandfather also hated and had many clashes with him, a communist who also abused his position to further his politics, like many union leaders who in reality had little interest in their members.

My old dad always said Joe Gormley was the best NUM leader.

In 2002, the BBC uncovered that Gormley had worked for Special Branch by passing on information on extremism within his own union. A former Special Branch officer made this allegation and said that Gormley "loved his country. He was a patriot and he was very wary and worried about the growth of militancy within his own union". The BBC claimed, "Special Branch was talking to more than 20 senior trades union leaders during the early 1970s"

think THE BATTLE OF ORGRAVE is tomorrow night
read stories of miners saying in hindsight they were set up like kippers by thatcher anbd the police to take a good kicking
previously they,d been stopped from leaving villages,followed around town.villages by police,on this day the police couldnt have been nicer,smiling, have a nice day lads,weathers lovely for picketing etc as they made their way to orgreve, LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER

Asked a few questions via Forces Reunited sparrow and in 1976 a soldier just joining was on £3.54 per day, in 1983 a Leading Airman was on £13.25 per day, still waiting for Police Salaries from oldies.

My steel toecap boots from my locker on a Monday morning would be like Aladdins shoes,Even the rats stayed away from underground but the mice loved it down there, there were thousands of them down there. Would i go back there, yes.

loved the old man and bloke in 40,s/50,s who said they go back on nightshift tonight,
mines,steelworks,shipyards have something that if you havnt worked in them,you,d never understand , its like listening/looking for your football teams score although youve been for 30 yrs

think its to do with the work,conditions,hours etc are that hard if you dont get/havnt got the blsack humour you wouldnt last a week

EMR,My dad told me one time a bloke hung his sandwiches up on a piece of wire off a prop to keep the mice off them and there was a hole eaten right through the middle of them, he didnt throw them away he just eat round the hole.

CROPSIK, you would be eating your sandwiches and the mice would be on your lap eating the crumbs that dropped.

First of all I want to be quite clear, my sympathies were very much with the miners and their families and communities, and still are.  How they were treated, during and after the strike, is a national scandal which has still not been addressed in my view.
Scargill however led them all down the garden path.  I agree with an earlier poster on that.
I always remember the late and very great miners leader Joe Gormley, who beat the government a few times and secured better terms for the miners on several occasions, saying, when asked what he thought of Scargill;s appointment after he retired.  He pointedly was brief and said, "It;s one thing getting the job, but it;s another thing doing it"!  He doubted him too.
I've often wondered how the NUM's membership would have fared if Mick McGahey had won the election instead.  We'll never know.

I went down a working pit in Warwickshire as a schoolboy in the 80s on a trip.  Horrendous working conditions.  Never had a better sense of privilege than realising that was not on my career path.  The way it was ended was appalling though.

If you ever visit Wales and would like to go down a real pit visit the Big Pit Blaenavon and not the joking one called Rhondda Heritage Park. The undergound tours at big pit are free at the moment or £5 if you pre-book.

Scargill was a great orator but that is all and their defeat lies at his door simply for not holding a National ballot. The miners put their trust in him because of his role in the 1972 strike.

I admired Scargill he spoke with real passion ,

so did hitler

No need to bring Hitler into an industrial dispute. All he ever did was to send trade unionists to concentration camps.

Still if it made people laugh then so be it.

Scargill wasn’t a communist , pretended to be one and in doing so feathered his own nest and lived unlike the people he allegedly represented in luxury ,exactly the same as this clown in charge of the railways.Champion of the working man ,utter bs.

he did a bit more than that sparrer

the point is that it is often said of socialists like him and benn and that they were passionate and even more often had 'principles'. never said of those they dont like

and if you want union persecution try the ussr at that time, or cuba today. strangely, british trade uninoists are largely big supporters of the cuban dictatorship that doesnt allow them, and imprisons any who call for them

Maybe a bit more than an orator I admit mitolo but his error in not calling the ballot was disastrous and unforgivable. Any trade unionist would tell you that and as an official myself in another union was amazed he could make such a costly mistake.

he wasnt a democrat, and democratic principles are too often ignored by socialists when it doesnt suit, hence my cuban dig. been going on a long time

I have to agree mitolo but as we both know not all socialists or people on the left think the same despite what many may think.

laugh.cry or go for a **** i cant make my mind up that after the last 5 yrs,someones saying THE LEFT IGNORE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES ,
bit of advice leave the sherry alone on an afternoon

What is your point 1st time?

torys shut down parliament
tory,s ingnoring ,breaking the law
tory,s making it harder to vote,giving vote to people lying on a beach in spain in uk elections

It wasn;t only his ballot mistake.  He ranted on for months about a coming strike allowing the government to ensure there were stockpiles of coal around the country.
Does he still reside in a nice, secure, Kensington pad?
His members could never have aspired to that, could they.

no but tube.train  drivers are /were gettingf 80 grand a yr for transporting him there due to work of unions,av wage 30 grand

Powerful viewing….

let me guess no police officers were done for perjury ?

just watching The Battle of Orgreave (episode 2)...

no doubt the strikers were done up like kippers that day.

spread betting on how many in police uniforms wernt actualy in ther police but hired thugs

LoyalHoncho 01 Feb 24 21:59 
It wasn;t only his ballot mistake.  He ranted on for months about a coming strike allowing the government to ensure there were stockpiles of coal around the country.
Does he still reside in a nice, secure, Kensington pad?

.............

Barnsley. When coal burning was banned I think he took the NCB to court for money off his gas bill, to make
up for the lost free coal allowance.

Episode 3 tonight...


The actions of millionaire Tory supporter David Hart, who worked behind the scenes to help Margaret Thatcher's government defeat the prolonged strike by exploiting divisions between working and striking miners in the key county of Nottinghamshire. When - with Hart's help - legal action was brought against the National Union of Mineworkers to freeze bank accounts, its chief executive Roger Windsor sought money from a controversial source - Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi. Then, in March 1985, beaten union leader Arthur Scargill announced the strike was over.

notts miners new they had no,s to defeat a strike call on a national ballot and worked in the most modern /profitable uk coal mines,so new they,d get longer than most
thatcher,s useful idiots,mines closed anyway but at least they got dinner with THATCHER
imagine that a uk miner dining with THATCHER

Doesn't bear thinking about.

The NCB made a lot of pits un-profitable by buying millions of £'s of new equipment that was just left too rot on the surface.

All these years on and my main image from the tumult is a Canadian bloke with
a brown paper bag on his head.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001wm1x

another interesting looking programme on tonight...

BBC2...

9pm...

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This is the story of 15 men and women and one life-changing year on the front line of the most divisive conflict of a generation: the 1984 miners' strike.

This documentary tells the story of this year-long conflict by combining archive footage with deeply personal testimony from striking and working miners, their families and the police - with many speaking for the first time.

a good programme for anyone who missed it.