I Was Brought Up In A Mining Town In The 50's And 60's.

[Jeza]

May I add my Dad was not a miner. We lived near a working man's club and every Fri, Sat and Sun it would be heaving with miners. If they won anything you could hear the chant. 'We won't be in tomorrow'. I left my home town in 68 but never forgot this. I accept that they were hard worked and badly paid (THEN). When Scargill came along, they believed him (remember most were uneducated) He tried to bring down MT, with their help and failed. The only losers were the miners. Scargill closed the mines not Thatcher. When he lost the job as union leader he carried on fleecing the union. Flat in London, Posh house and car in South Yorkshire, all paid for by the miners.

Yet on today's news they were burning effigy's of her. I feel ashamed to have been a part of this community.

[mazie]

Thank you Kleiber...

[DTCwordfan]

The mines were in financial trouble long before Thatcher and Scargill. Even before WW2 many of them were economically questionable. WW2 and the 50s delayed the inevitable, the process of closures increasing through the 60s with Wilson (along with the demise of steel and the railway network - Beechings 2nd report that really delivered the blow on the railways was in 1965).

Britain could not afford such loss making pits, steel or cars - our global competivity was shyte, management just as much to blame as the unions. I can remember starting work in a major British oil co and appalled at the number of sneior and middle execs plastered at 3pm and out of the office by 4.30, the last hour being devoted to the Times crossword and strong coffee.

At least Margaret got us back on the right tracks back in the early 80s, one other thing being arresting the brain and talent drain overnight - the slashing of income and unearned to back under 50% from as high as 98% on unearned.

Later on some of her policies like Poll Tax (though philosophically good) and Hong Kong were skewed and her listening skills gradually deteriorating as she became demagogic - a bit like Tony B did as well - that goes with the turf, I believe, and is a good reason for a maximum of two terms in power being brought in.

[paddywak]

One thing I've always been pleased with is that by '84 I'd been promoted high enough to be out of the NUM and didn't have to make the decision as to strike or not and even now I honestly don't know which way I'd have gone. The emotions it gave birth to have never died, I know a lad who'd been my apprentice and then left to join the police just before the strike began, virtually his first deployment as a copper was during the strike in the village where his mother was born and the first time he stood in the line opposing the pickets the men in the group directly in front of him were his Grandad, uncles and cousins, some off whom still wont speak to him.

[mazie]

Awww. What an awful situation they put us all in Paddywak.... It was never us. It was the opposing powers that turned brother against brother. (The bastards!)

[askyourgran]

Margaret Thatcher had quite a bit of compassion Sharinghan, for people who earned respect by hard work and enterprise. Harold Wilson began closing the mines before MT closed more, there were industries which were actually losing money, a strain on the economy at that time. Some mines were overworked and unsafe. All this happened long before you looked at Wicki or listened to the leftist rantings. You could not know the reasons for her policies. Arthur Scargill and the unions tried to bring down Britain, strikes were continual, but the miners have forgotton all that, except they didn't get to find work elsewhere they lived in pit villages and the younger ones were too stupid to move out and try elsewhere. Some of whom are still hating 30 years on. I was ashamed to see them in Rotherham.

[Jeza]

I'm sorry I had to leave this thread. (Mic to look after) I am pleased that others are of the same opinion. My brother and Father fell out big time over MT. Brother was a Scargill supporter. Father was not.

[mazie]

I've just found a photo of the pit my grandad worked at...

http://www.doctorbill.co.uk/wp/?attachment_id=120

[Psybbo]

Jeza, please give my regards to mic, I miss him xx

[mazie]

I can't begin imagine what it was like to work down pits like this...We have it so easy compared to those days.

[B00]

Yep, ditto from me, say hiya to Mic for us please x

[DTCwordfan]

AYG is spot on.

Apart from some major gaffes on misreading the EU and Hong Kong-China, the two major stuff-ups were the Poll Tax and perhaps not letting the handbrake off new housing investment that could have helped the North of the UK. Thirdly, I would have said that the Conservatives could have done far more to take us into research and dev at Uni level to seed the fledgling electronics and bio industries, as well as new metals etc., the investment being into the talent pool.

Engineers, chemists, bioscientist and phsyicists and mathematicians could have been further encouraged, as they were in the then W. Germany.

[Snafu03]

having whole communities solely based on one industry is unrealistic.

[Jeza]

Thanks Sib and Boo. I will pass on your regards.

[askyourgran]

That was interesting mazie. I have a photo of me and all my mothers family outside the family bungalow (quite large) in a pit village in Murton Co Durham. Outside loo no bathroom or hot water, there was a water pump in the street. My grandad was a miner at Easington Colliery, and three of my uncles were also miners. One of them worked a deep mine under the sea can't remember the name of the pit. I remember seeing the miners on Sundays all the men wore flat caps and very white scarfs around their necks, then off they'd go to the miners club for a few pints before dinner, women were not allowed in the pubs and clubs then. That was around late 40's until 70s when the bungalows were demolished.