1980s miners strikes?

[CaulkheadUpNorf]

I'm watching Pride, which is set 1984-5, which is before I was born, and it's made me realise I know nothing about the miners strikes.

If you remember it, were affected by it, what was it like? Or are there some things I can read to find out more? There's very little online

My parents used to raise money for the miners at home and abroad. I (almost) thought it was normal when I was growing up to have the phone tapped and people watching in vans outside the door. There used to be complete denial this was happening but now some of the files are available

In hindsight, if the unions had known quite how underhand the government was being, they'd have been a lot less open about what they were up to.

(And we are heading back in that direction fast.)

Wow... what a fantastic thread. Please get it moved to classics MN towers.

I'm finding it quite upsetting though and now crying... I was a newlywed and a student nurse at the time in a Northern City Hospital. My DH was in a brand new IT industry at that time, so we were pretty ok (his company brought barcoding into the UK). My workmates were all married to miners and we helped them a lot.

Thatcher's name will always be shit round here and people would really spit on her grave given an opportunity.

What I remember
My dad was a miner at collieries in the south east.
No money.
He was a 'minder' for Arthur scargill.
Being sat on my dad's shoulders on the top of his num jacket.
Meeting the flying pickets at the union office.
Being sent to London on a trip ON MY OWN with other miners kids aged 4.
Food parcels.
The police dragging my dad out of Bed.
Struggling to work after Orgreave.
Being asked to leave the brownies for repeating a chant about 'building a bonfire' and 'Maggie Thatcher'
My dad crying when 'scabs' went back to work.
My dad having a serious injury from the pit.

EastMidsGPs yes... the women of Greenham Common seem to have been forgotten. They are a whole other thread.

He worked in
Bettesanger
Tilminstone
Snowdon

He has also applied and won just about every coal related injury e.g. White finger, deafness etc. His grandad was a Welsh miner so it was in the family.

He was dragged down a coal shaft though and nearly lost his leg. Instead he was treated badly and lost his knee cap and had a permanently straight leg at 25.

So many people on here were directly involved. Another thing I remember was how organised the miners wives (and girlfriends and mums) became during the strike. Ann Scargill was brilliant, but so were a lot of other working class women who weren't going to sit by and watch when they could be out campaigning (and were trying to keep their families going at the same time, financially and socially).

I've save the Greenham common women for another day!

chaotica I'm watching a documentary atm and it's just got to her, just as you posted that. She sounds very interesting.

She was great. And, if I remember right, working in the Co-op throughout.

Yep, that's what she said. And when she was arrested told the police that she was old enough to be their mother and they were being ridiculous.

How many have forgotten the poor miners who were illiterate.
The job center told them to claim incapacity benefit because it was cheaper than teaching them.
Then more of the exminers who had problems finding work were shoved on incapacity, unemployment figures were too high for MrsT.

Men only asking for a living wage told they are worthless in their 30s.
No wonder they don't enthusiastically go on job searches at 64, or their kids.

After the strike we had to import coal, inclusing that mined by children and women in Chile.

The stupid thing is, the empty coal mine shafts are a national asset. We could incinerate much of our domestic waste and store the ash in the shafts. It would also cut down on the amount of subsidance.

From the south east here so no direct involvement with the strikes. But I can remember seeing it on the news and I'm sure Smash Hits magazine reported on Bruce Springsteen helping the striking miners in some capacity (can't remember what or how unfortunately)

It was the beginning of globalisation making whole communities obsolete, simply because they wanted to keep their jobs. It wasn't even over wages, it was about pit closures.

I recommend the channel 4 documentary, if features a very young Tony Blair.

I just thought - was it discussed on then programmes at the time? I'm thinking Coronation Street, last of the summer wine, emmerdale etc.

I grew up in a mining town. It was an awful time. My grandad was a miner although he died years before the strike. He wouldn't allow his sons to go down the mines, thank goodness.
I detest what the Tories did to the mining communities. I don't think the Union leaders did the best job for their members either. It was a war people towns like mine were caught in the middle of it.

I grew up in Nottinghamshire during the strikes, and work on industrial transitions in the broad sense, including phase out of coal. I would definitely argue that the effects of closure are felt today.

I don't think anyone could dispute that Thatcher was driven by a desire to break the unions and that the way she did so was brutal. But the pro-Thatcher camp (of which I am emphatically not one) would point to the subsidies given to support unprofitable mines. There was a program of closure in South Wales throughout the sixties and seventies, including under labour governments, simply because the mines were so costly to run. This explains why there are thirty years of coal, or however many years, left in the ground. Sure, it's there, but it would have cost a fortune to get out, especially when cheap North Sea gas and oil was coming online.

Interestingly, other regions - Spain and France - have also gone through a similar transition, but with far less dislocation simply because the government wasn't set on breaking the unions.

This is fascinating, educational and emotional. Another call for adding to Classics. First time I've ever made that call!
Thanks for asking the question OP and thank you to all who have contributed.

Squat there were pits in the south east. My dad worked in them.....

I was 14/15 - we used to collect tins for mining families outside of Safeway

I remember putting people up in our house who where travelling to and from picket lines

I also went to Greenham - I still own a bit of fence!

I went to school in a South Yorkshire pit village, my Grandad and Uncle were miners and my Dad was in the Steel industry. I was 13 in 1984. Our Geography class walked down to interview the striking miners gathered around the brazier at the pit gates; I remember them saying it was all Ian McGregor's fault.
My best friend had moved to Nottinghamshire and once when my Dad drove me to her house, the police stopped us at a roadblock looking for flying pickets. They searched the car and checked it really was a guitar in my guitar case. Scary.
Everyone sang rhymes about scabs. I didn't really understand the depth of it but it got quite nasty and personal.
Thatcher is still like a swearword up there. She decimated the area.

My step dads brothers both moved to nottingham just after the strikes their
pit closed my Sd was tempted but he got a job elsewhere

No idea what, but something happened in our family at the time of the strikes. I know my grandad was a ventilation engineer or something, and the strike basically split his and grandmas family in two. At the time I was very small and my dad was in the forces so we were out the way really. However, even now my grandparents are still very obviously isolated, and my grandad is very, very bitter. I'll never find out what happened.

This is North Notts area. I worked at the Jobcentre mid to late nineties when they were finishing up the Pretty Polly factory and it was still talked about then- a lot of women did indeed provide for their families throughout the strike on the back of tights and clothing.