Guardian: Miners' strike 30 years on: 'I fought not just for “my pit” but for the community'

[Omaha Steve]

To mark the end of the miners’ strike 30 years ago we asked Guardian readers to share their memories. We heard from mineworkers, police and community leaders, here are some of their responses




http://www.theguardian.com/politics/guardianwitness-blog/2015/mar/05/miners-strike-30-years-on-i-fought-not-just-for-my-pit-but-for-the-community

Approaching the pit gates at Markham Maine in Armthorpe near Doncaster. “After 12 months out, we ceremonially marched back to work, though personally I didn’t as we hadn’t won and didn’t think it appropriate. Just bitterness I suppose” Photograph: klokan/GuardianWitness


Caroline Bannock and Guardian readers
Thursday 5 March 2015 04.12 EST

It may be 30 years on but for those involved in the miners’ strike, memories are still raw. The anger at the hardship suffered by strikers and their families still runs deep, as does the bitterness between those on the picket lines and those who crossed them. Divided communities take a long time to heal; some never do. Despite the hard times there were many stories that spoke of fortitude of individuals and generosity of strangers. There was even mention of camaraderie between police and mineworkers on the more peaceful picket lines. Others like Orgreave were much more violent.

At the start of the miners’ strike in 1984, Bruce Wilson was 29 years old, married with a mortgage and 2 young kids. He had worked underground as a miner at Silverwood Colliery, Rotherham, South Yorkshire since 1978. “In the early 1980’s I/we knew it was coming, we were warned enough by our NUM [National Union of Mineworkers] leadership and other sources. Thatcher and her goverment wanted a showdown. Where I live there were a dozen collieries within a 20 mile radius ... I fought not just for “my pit” but for the mining community next door.”



Silverwood Colliery, Rotherham. South Yorkshire during the miners’ strike, August 1984. “Macgregor [chairman of the national coal board] said Yorkshire would be the first to “crack” in the back to work campaign. We didn’t, 86% of Yorkshire miners’ stayed out until the end” Photograph: Bruce Wilson/GuardianWitness
During the summer of 1984, Wilson along with four others were flying pickets, travelling from their home in Yorkshire to support striking mineworkers in Nottinghamshire. Wilson also picketed at Orgreave coking plant and was there on 18 June, the day of some of the worst violence between mineworkers and police. He kept a diary at the time, “I was running with dozens of riot police in hot pursuit, I ran past an elderly miner, on his knees, out of breath, I stopped, this must have been in his late 50s, he had an old long gaberdine coat on, and it was hot today, he couldn’t get his breath, the riot police were closing in but I couldn’t leave him there ... to this day I don’t know how be managed to get up and run but he did. I ran alongside till we got out of the way and to safety.”

After Orgreave tensions were running high. Canon Trevor Hicks, who was then vicar of Knottingley in Yorkshire recalls conducting the funeral of mineworker Joe Green, who died after being hit by a lorry when peacefully picketing at the Ferrybridge power station. “This was a sensitive time, only four days after Orgreave and policing was kept to a minimum. 8,000 miners marched from Pontefract Racecourse to join up with the cortege at Pontefract Crematorium. The service was relayed outside and also through the media.” The Guardian’s report at the time included some of Canon Hicks’s address, “the presence of so many miners from all over the country bore moving witness to the deep bond of brotherhood and the mutual respect between those who followed a dangerous and demanding profession.”

FULL story at link.

[Omaha Steve]

1. Kick

[malaise]

2. Margaret Thatcher was a first rate scumbag