Question about miners strike

[garlictwist]

I've just watched the channel 4 doc on the miners strikes. Very interesting as I wasn't around at the time and didn't know much about it.

What it didn't explain though was why they were striking in the first place - was it that they wanted more money? Or were the mines being closed?

And was this to do with the three day week and the power cuts?

The three day week was the 1970s

There you go.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984–1985_United_Kingdom_miners%27_strike

Closing the mines, devastating communities, throwing thousands out of work and offering no alternative employment

It was Arthur Scargill vs Maggie Thatcher
I live in a SY mining town and I was a child at the time but I remember the desperation locally. People still talk about it and ridicule the scabs if we play derby of forest in the football. It’s not forgotten here

Thatcher 🧙‍♀️ wanted to close the pits. The miners went on strike to try and prevent the closures which in turn would lead to job losses, poverty and deprivation in those areas.

The police were burning £10 notes in front of the striking miners.

Were they really burning tenners? I didn't know that. The scars still run deep around here. Thatcher will never be forgiven.

It very clearly stated in the first of that series that it was to stop pit closures.

I’m from a northern pit village, scabs were shunned for many years, I hope Thatcher’s burning in Hell for what she did to our communities

My grandfather was down the mines from the age of 12 in South Wales. Despite moving to work in London in his 20's, he never spoke Thatcher's name. She was always referred to as "that bloody woman".

Police were waving wads of money in the faces of the miners on the picket lines boasting about the overtime they were earning whilst the miners were surviving in soup kitchens and food parcels from Poland

She was an absolute cunt, and I'm glad she's dead.

English child staying in Wales at that time we had to hide when they paraded the local children protected us from their parents by hiding us in the park and lying to the adults about where we were from not all schools taught Welsh at the time so we were OK speaking English but we had to fake an accent and pretend to be from another village

It was unpleasant

She made open greed not only acceptable but desirable.

My understanding is the miners could be nasty and from the first hand accounts I've heard a lot of the violence was miners on miners not police on miners. The problem with the strikes is there isn't a universal truth. Each pit, each village and each police force acted differently.

Do you know about Orgreave ?

I remember in the strike one really funny thing. My dad was an older miner and near where I lived were some pit stacks where rioting used to take place.I remember they shipped in police from all over the country.We were lucky as our grandparents had a caravan so during the height of summer me and my younger brother went away with them in the caravan for 6 weeks to get us out of the way of the trouble. Mum and dad stayed at home of course..anyway as autumn was drawing in and it was getting cold this one particular day we had 2 police men stood at the bottom of our garden all night for some reason. My mum and dad were decent people and my mum went out and asked the two officers if they would like a cup of tea.? They came in our house and were frozen,she sat them next to dad in front of the coal fire and made them tea and toast.We woke to much laughter and lots of chatting and two policemen ! After a while they got up said thank you so much very genuinely and said how kind my mum and dad were to them as they felt they were disliked so much due to the bloody idiot miners but they were raking it in in overtime so they were glad of the hassle.They then turned to dad and said what line of work are you in Sir? My dad never flinched and said I am one of those bloody miners son! I have looked back on these memories for years and I only hope what my mum and dad did that day showed the miners to be the decent kind family men I grew up with.It certainly changed those policemens attitude a little.
For what its worth in my view Arthur Scargill was right but he went about it all wrong..too many communities suffered way too much.

Not until I've just read the wiki entry just now. Awful doesn't cover it.

this, it was devastating I was a teenager at the time my dad was a miner.

We had to buy my grandfather a Thatcher squeaky toy to squeeze during the news. We were afraid he'd burst a blood vessel.

FIL down the mine at 14 ended up emigrating for work. My GF lives in a mining community until his death. My parents moved for work. So many people had to go.

European surpluss butter in the food parcels..just came back to me!

Scargill was right. There was a plan to close multiple mines, not just the handful the government were claiming had to close. He was not lying, as he was portrayed as doing in the media.

It was the wholesale destruction of mining - to the extent that mines that could have been reopened later on were deliberately destroyed in a way to make the completely irreparable, leaving us entirely reliant upon overseas.

All you slating Margaret Thatcher.. you do realise Wilson closed more pits than she did?

I remember the food parcels and mystery cans of food the Eastern European countries were very generous.

I want to know more about this, too young to remember