Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
The 'desperate circumstances' were caused by Scargill who had political motivation and used the miners, at least those misguided enough to support him, in the way a WW1 general used his troops. It was the last fight of the old Union dinosaurs.
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,888
Coming from a fairly neutral point of view Scargill was a troublemaker who did the miners cause no favours while Thatcher was determined to win regardless of the consequences. To me they were as bad as each other.
Back to the police of that era, the top brass obviously thought they were petty gods who could twist the law to suit their own ends, sadly the Hillsborough tragedy has proved that to be true and it looks like the miners strike could be next.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 671- Registered: 4 May 2008
- Posts: 2,095
BarryW.
"at least those misguided enough to support him"
That amounted to about a dozen Kent Miners or very much less than 1%.
Some miners, again less than 1% along with some so called supporters, did things that cannot be supported.
This thread is about the other 98% of decent, hardworking, proud menand women whose only care was to save his/her Colliery from closing.
A repeated fact.
On 5th March 1984, we received a call from miners at Cortonwood Colliery, telling us they had been served with a closure notice, due to financial loss and not exhaustion or geological reasons.
The financial loss occurred when the Coal Board spent £1Million on pithead improvements, this was after the men were informed that their pit was safe and not on the closure list.
This same tactic was used at other collieries.
Thatcher knew every area had balloted, country wide, with 100% support to take industrial action for any pit closure other than through geological or coal exhaustion reasons.
When SHE was ready and when the timing was right for HER, she announced the closure of profitable pits, knowing we had a mandate for strike action.
Cortonwood called for our help, we knew we would be next, so we responded.
Scargill did NOT call us out on strike, we called him and told him we were all out in Kent.
Reg. #18
Both for me.
"My New Year's Resolution, is to try and emulate Marek's level of chilled out, thoughtfulness and humour towards other forumites and not lose my decorum"
Guest 671- Registered: 4 May 2008
- Posts: 2,095
Jan.
Many miners would agree with you there.
It was only Tory propaganda and the idiots that believed it, that labelled us Scargills army.
"My New Year's Resolution, is to try and emulate Marek's level of chilled out, thoughtfulness and humour towards other forumites and not lose my decorum"
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
GaryC - Scargill and his bully boys were out for a confrontation from the start. He got what he wanted and ultimately what he deserved. Scargills political aims, thuggery and intimidation was what that strike was all about.
Why did he not call a national strike ballot instead of an area by area one?
If he had the support you claim for a strike why did so many miners in moderate areas decide to carry on working?
Why did he then rely on intimidation to try to force the moderate miners to submit to his will?
Scargill supported by a dozen Kent miners..... you do 'tell 'em. Kent was known as a militant area and you claim it was just a dozen of them.... Well if that was true what about the rest, sheep perhaps? in that case cowardly sheep at that for knuckling down to a dozen Scargill thugs.
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,888
Kent miners were fairly militant because they knew that their pits were due to close so they would all be out of a job, what else would any sane person expect except for them to put up a fight.
Have I missed something where does Gary say a dozen miners, there were a lot more than that.
Calling a miner cowardly beats any of the dubious things biased BarryW has ever said, I might accept silly but cowardly never.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 671- Registered: 4 May 2008
- Posts: 2,095
BarryW,
You have no concept of the Kent Miner and very little, if none, factual knowledge on the strike.
Your pathetic attempt to ignore, yet again, the facts and to start throwing your childish name calling is old hat, boring and blinkered.
I won't answer questions, you have asked before and ignored the answer, this forum has lost enough people through your petulance.
"My New Year's Resolution, is to try and emulate Marek's level of chilled out, thoughtfulness and humour towards other forumites and not lose my decorum"
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
one of my abiding memories of that strike was a scene on a mid-day news bulletin that showed riot police gleefully bashing 2 women holding aloft banners.
it got edited out by the evening, so much for the "lefty" b.b.c.
Guest 715- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 2,438
Cowardly? have you ever done anything dangerous or brave Barry? and I don't include taking a financial risk in that!
Audere est facere.
Guest 756- Registered: 6 Jun 2012
- Posts: 727
I am proud of my involvement in the miners strike and truly believe that the role women played supporting their miners led to a huge increase in political awareness for women. This had a direct influence on empowering women to challenge those institutions, namely health, education, pensions, wages and employment rights, to bring about change for the benefit of all (not just women).
I was charged with besetting a miners house, when the officers called to make the charge they had to phone HQ to find out what it meant. When informed that the translation was "to surround" the charges could not be brought as the house in question was terraced !
The fact that the "miner" who had returned to work discharged a shotgun onto a public highway- I gatherd a handful of pellets as proof- narrowly missing two little girls playing on a public footpath, who were traunmatised by the experience, was excused of any crime proved to me that our wonderful justice system was a puppet of the tory gov.
A Chief Inspector from another force spoke to me "off record" and apologised for the ,Quote,bully-boy tactics of the officers drafted in from other forces. To this day he sends me a Christmas card.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
I am suggesting that in the context of the rubbish GaryC was spouting.
To suggest there were only a dozen Scargill supporters in the Kent pit was absurd. If you believe that rubbish then, as I said, the rest were cowardly sheep.
Guest 756- Registered: 6 Jun 2012
- Posts: 727
As were those police forces and army regiments who relished the prospect of endorsed violence against innocent men, women and children.
Guest 671- Registered: 4 May 2008
- Posts: 2,095
Less than 1% of miners went on strike because Scargill wanted a fight with Thatcher.
The rest went on strike as a last resort, to save their Collieries.
"My New Year's Resolution, is to try and emulate Marek's level of chilled out, thoughtfulness and humour towards other forumites and not lose my decorum"
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
barry
some of your language is a bit provocative, many innocent people were injured, falsely arrested, many lost their jobs and communities went with those losses.
making it a thatcher versus scargill issue does not take into account peoples lives.
Guest 756- Registered: 6 Jun 2012
- Posts: 727
My cousin somehow mananged to bite himself on the back of his shoulder whilst in police custody.
Guest 671- Registered: 4 May 2008
- Posts: 2,095
The biggest mis-justice to our miners was being called the "Enemy Within"
That hurt more than anyone outside the industry can ever imagine.
"My New Year's Resolution, is to try and emulate Marek's level of chilled out, thoughtfulness and humour towards other forumites and not lose my decorum"
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,888
BarryW is posting the biggest load of c..p I have ever read about the strike and obviously has no real knowledge of what went on during that period in Kent but chooses to believe the rubbish spread by the media.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
I remember exactly what went on in that strike.
There was no excuse for the violence and intimidation committed by the strikers.
The mobs outside collieries, the vandalism to the both the police and working miners homes, the intimidation, the bullying and violence. I remember that very well.
Those who participated in that behaviour (which I accept was not all strikers) earned the strikers as a whole nothing but disgust and contempt. Only those brave enough to carry on going to work through all of that deserve any kind of sympathy and support.
As for the police. Some individual police officers may well have acted unprofessionally and in spite of the provocation they suffered, are no better than the mob as a result. As a whole though, they deserve our admiration, thanks and support for what they had to put up with and for what they did. I have friends and clients who were in the police at the time and found themselves holding back the baying mob being punch and kicked, spat at daily. They deserved every penny of the overtime they earned. The violent mob must never be allowed to rule.
Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
welcome wendy
look forward to more interesting postings from you.
of course those not personally involved in this dispute may not understand what is being said here.
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
Barry, nobody really knows exactly what went on, certainly nobody who was not physically present on the ground. Getting a view from the media is dangerous and unreliable; we know from personal accounts that the police closely controlled the movements of the strikers so we can reliably assume thay also controlled access by journalists and cameras equally closely, making sure they only reported and filmed what they were supposed to. Anecdotes about the police taunting strikers and their families by waving their overtime pay packets at them are so rife that they can't be ignored, yet I have never seen that on film. We have Gary's eye-witness reports of strikers being illegally 'kettled' yet this is something the media were not allowed to see.
There is more to this than meets the eye and it has long been obvious to me that highly illegal practices were routine on both sides. Furthermore, when the police have been exposed for falsifying evidence I struggle to take at face value anything they say on the subject.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson