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Miner's Strikes

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What I remember (and will never forget) is what Thatcher did to the Mining Communities. I know it sounds dramatic but she actually ripped the heart out of them and what for - pure revenge on the miners?

The Tory government said the pits were uneconomic, they said Tower Colliery in South Wales, was unviable; it was bought out by the workers and it is still producing vast quantities of coal to this day. How many more times did the Tories lie?

I remember coming out of school at 11:00 every day to go on the picket line at the Phurnacite Plant in Abercwmboi where one scab had gone into work. He was a hated figure and had to leave the valley to move north where he was given a new identity!

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Do You Remember Miner's Strikes?

Do You Remember Miner's Strikes?

  • Anonymous user
    on
    By the winter of 73, the Unions , and especially the Miners, had become far too powerful. In the face the the Oil Shock, the strongest unions were demanding more and more, while the rest of us got less and less. The mines in particular were colelctively unprofitable and being subsidised by the taxpayer. Scargill was incompetent, unrealistic and a fool. He started the miners strike at the end of the summer, when demand for coal was low and there were huge stocks. BY the time the stock levels were starting to cause concern, the miners had been on strike 8 months and were beaten. Only a fool would have started a coal strike in March, failure were inevitable. If he had had any common sense he would have waited till September, and used the winter as an ally. Scargill was, in the last analysis, a stupid, vainglorious, incompetant, self obbessed dreamer from Communist La La Land, unsuited to running a union.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I worked shifts then and would be in pub early mornings which was next to police station and all the police would be there after their duty ,,,,,only thing they talked about was the money ,,,,,,,all their overtime and expenses ,,,,loadsamoney for them
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Dark days - and they seemed to go on & on ! I think Thatcher & Scargill were both wrong in a way, tho you had to admire their principledness. Could it happen again today ?
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Arthur Scargill predicted what was coming and was proved right - the tory governments plan to close the pits, not because they didn't like coal but because they feared the industrial might of the miners and their union the NUM. Pure political spite by the evil Thatcher. soldiers were disguised as police, travel was suspended in areas of the country, the miners had pure courage to go out the way they did.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I had and still have absolute loathing for the communist twit that is Arthur Scargill. Striking for what reason? To keep a load of pit ponies alive! Scab was also a widely used word for the sensible people who actually cared about their jobs and didn't stand outside collieries degrading themselves by burning coal which they had previously mined.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Coming from a mining town they had HUGE pickets outside the pit ... so we skived off from school to go and look at 'em. I remember some bloke showing us his nob. Ah the joys of being 11!

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