The Miners Strike

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Re: The Miners Strike

Mining started to decline from the first world war though to the second , then as rail moved to diesel further recline occurred interestingly Labour under Harold Wilson closed more mines than Thatcher and the unions then decided to take the fight to the government and Thatcher decided to win that fight and break the Scargill politically motivated strikes ( he was a nasty, Decline in demand for coal. Even as late as the 1960s, British railways were run coal power. But, steam power soon vanished in place of diesel and electric. Households used to burn coal for central heating. But, after the Clean Air Act of the 1950s, this rapidly declined as people switched to more modern forms of central heating.Political Issues. The coal industry had the most powerful unions in the country. Unions were highly organised, often by leaders with strong political (left wing) allegiances. Miners strikes, such as 1924, early 1970s and 1984 Miners strike had the capacity to bring the country to a standstill as Thatcher)

Coal was well in decline from WW2

Then rail was moving to diesel Wilson Labours new that as they closed many more mines than Thatcher .

Scargill was as bad as Thatcher both driven politically , the country was forever being held to ransom as a last grasp of union power, as tyey knew rail travel would stop and folks homes were deprived of heating , in a way the coal unions accelerated thier own demise .

Ladies and Gentleman

That was a party political broadcast by Margaret Thatcher

[RichardM]

Re: The Miners Strike

Ladies and Gentleman

That was a party political broadcast by Margaret Thatcher

I think it was a post from someone who has had a few beers and has limited copy and pasting skills. But the essence of what he says his right, mining was in decline from the early part of the 20th century.
Doesn't alter the fact that Maggie was evil.

[JamesWales]

Re: The Miners Strike

It's not hard to seperate out the personal stories of the strike; the decline of an ancient industry, the devastation inflicted upon communities, the loss of self respect for many people and towns, many of which wouldn't exist without pits etc and the economics and politics behind it, which were very complex and included, off the top of my head, geopolitical issues, the development of the EEC, growing environmental issues, a stubborn PM and a stubborn union leadership, lack of diversity in the S.Wales economy, technological changes, shipping advances etc.

I really don't subscribe to this evil Thatcher idea, as there's always winners and losers but what always struck me as heartbreaking is that while the industry was clearly in decline and we couldn't produce it as cheaply as other places it was artificially shut down at a greater pace. Tower Colliery shows that. Even that didn't last but if a dozen or so more pits had lasted a dozen or so more years it may have made the 80s and 90s an easier time for many.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: The Miners Strike

Scargill was an idiot for not holding a ballot which he probably would have won. About ten years earlier Ted Heath’s Government were, effectively, beaten by the miners and I’ve always thought that the Conservative Party were bent on revenge after that and that the miners days were numbered once Thatcher won her landslide in 79 which was then backed up by a bigger win in 83.

It’s fair to say that mining was into its final phase at the time of the 84 strike and it would have gone the way it did if the strike hadn’t have happened, but there was no need for the situation to have been handled the way Thatcher did. There could have been a gradual phased closure with more thought and sympathy given to what was going to be left behind when the mines closed.

I can only speak for the Rhondda really and
it does has outstanding natural beauty, but it doesn’t have a great deal else in its favour. It’s an area and community which has clearly seen better days - as I said before, it wasn’t as simple as just closing the mines, it was all of the other things that disappeared with them.

[Seabird]

Re: The Miners Strike

Nice post, Bob.

[JamesWales]

Re: The Miners Strike

Scargill was an idiot for not holding a ballot which he probably would have won. About ten years earlier Ted Heath’s Government were, effectively, beaten by the miners and I’ve always thought that the Conservative Party were bent on revenge after that and that the miners days were numbered once Thatcher won her landslide in 79 which was then backed up by a bigger win in 83.

It’s fair to say that mining was into its final phase at the time of the 84 strike and it would have gone the way it did if the strike hadn’t have happened, but there was no need for the situation to have been handled the way Thatcher did. There could have been a gradual phased closure with more thought and sympathy given to what was going to be left behind when the mines closed.

I can only speak for the Rhondda really and
it does has outstanding natural beauty, but it doesn’t have a great deal else in its favour. It’s an area and community which has clearly seen better days - as I said before, it wasn’t as simple as just closing the mines, it was all of the other things that disappeared with them.

This is broadly what I think.

I'm generally optimistic about the Valleys. They are exceptionally, at times breathtakingly beautiful. I thing the heads of the valleys need to look to this more and tourism and the like. This is slowly happening.

Lower down they need to look to Cardiff, and places like Ponty can become a de facto suburb of Cardiff. No bad thing. Indeed my ex (very much a Cardiff girl) is out in Ponty tonight. I don't think that's happened before.

Focus on the larger towns like Ponty, Merthyr and Blackwood etc and good transport links. I'm not s fan of working from home at all - I think it's devastating for society...but..hybrid working of 2/3 of days in an office or hub could benefit some towns. The times of each small town having an employer with 1000 jobs is gone. Not just here but across the western world.

Too many councils too. They don't work together enough, and are too suspicious of Cardiff when in reality we are just one economic region.

I'm optimistic tbh.

[Once U shop, U can't stop]

Re: The Miners Strike

It is a fact of history that many settlements were devastated by factors beyond their control and its people simply moved on. These events are mostly noted but unlamented,

For example, hundreds of villages became deserted when the Black Death wiped out a proportion of their folk, and the rest moved out. A local industrial example is at Garnddyrys to the north of Blaenavon and Pontypool. A forge was established here to further refine iron smelted at Blaenavon before it was moved down to the Brecon Canal. It operated from 1816 to 1860. Around the forge was a small village of 450 people living in homes and a pub built in a desolate spot. Then the railway came to Blaenavon. There was no further need for the Garnddyrys Forge. All its people moved on. The village was demolished and unless you knew about it, you could walk over the landscape and never knew it existed. No-one sheds a tear for the plight of its people or wonders what happened to them. They were absorbed into the local communities. You've probably never heard of Garnddyrys, although its only about thirty miles from Cardiff.

This sort of event is a fact of economic life.

Find a scapegoat. Play the blame game. Point a finger at the steel-masters. But that doesn't alter the basic fact that the village died because of economic forces which were beyond their control.

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Re: The Miners Strike

It is a fact of history that many settlements were devastated by factors beyond their control and its people simply moved on. These events are mostly noted but unlamented,

For example, hundreds of villages became deserted when the Black Death wiped out a proportion of their folk, and the rest moved out. A local industrial example is at Garnddyrys to the north of Blaenavon and Pontypool. A forge was established here to further refine iron smelted at Blaenavon before it was moved down to the Brecon Canal. It operated from 1816 to 1860. Around the forge was a small village of 450 people living in homes and a pub built in a desolate spot. Then the railway came to Blaenavon. There was no further need for the Garnddyrys Forge. All its people moved on. The village was demolished and unless you knew about it, you could walk over the landscape and never knew it existed. No-one sheds a tear for the plight of its people or wonders what happened to them. They were absorbed into the local communities. You've probably never heard of Garnddyrys, although its only about thirty miles from Cardiff.

This sort of event is a fact of economic life.

Find a scapegoat. Play the blame game. Point a finger at the steel-masters. But that doesn't alter the basic fact that the village died because of economic forces which were beyond their control.

Well do we just accept economics as the driver of society ?

The people breaking their backs were the miners , the people making the money were those at the top.

When areas rely heavily on industry the removal of that industry should be gradual and other employment provided

That is what a caring society does

Under Thatcher we didn't have that

It was all about money

[Once U shop, U can't stop]

Re: The Miners Strike

Well do we just accept economics as the driver of society ?
The people breaking their backs were the miners , the people making the money were those at the top.
When areas rely heavily on industry the removal of that industry should be gradual and other employment provided
That is what a caring society does
Under Thatcher we didn't have that
It was all about money

This is such a crass comment.
The bottom line is, yes it's about economics.
Remember that in South Wales, a good proportion of miners were men who had moved from the West Country to find work and for years were paid better that farm workers. Sure, the owners made money, but the miners earned a living too - better than they had.
Out of work miners after the strike were helped financially. They weren't left entirely in the lurch.
And your mindset is entirely anti-Thatcher.
I didn't and don't support her, but I know that much of this trouble was stirred up by Scargill and his red cohorts who had their own agenda and used their union members as pawns in their political game. How much of the woes of the miners and their families can be laid at Scargill's door?

[splott parker]

Re: The Miners Strike

This is such a crass comment.
The bottom line is, yes it's about economics.
Remember that in South Wales, a good proportion of miners were men who had moved from the West Country to find work and for years were paid better that farm workers. Sure, the owners made money, but the miners earned a living too - better than they had.
Out of work miners after the strike were helped financially. They weren't left entirely in the lurch.
And your mindset is entirely anti-Thatcher.
I didn't and don't support her, but I know that much of this trouble was stirred up by Scargill and his red cohorts who had their own agenda and used their union members as pawns in their political game. How much of the woes of the miners and their families can be laid at Scargill's door?

You’re concentrating on the miners and their families when it’s wiser to look at the bigger picture of the effect on the whole area not just the pit communities. The crucial sentence in Sludge’s post that you were replying to is ‘When areas rely heavily on industry, the removal of that industry should be gradual and other employment provided’. Thatcher and her cohorts didn’t want this, they wanted an already crowded existing labour pool to be flooded to overflow. Resulting in wages stagnating or even dropping in real terms due to establishment’s mantra of ‘take it or leave it’. The things that woman done to this country and the aftermath which still resonates to this day was unforgivable.

[JamesWales]

Re: The Miners Strike

Always strikes me (wahey!) that the miners strike is almost the pinnacle of the political saga in the UK, such that Orwell couldn't have written it better himself.

On the one side an economically incompetent communist bullying false-prophet. On the other some evil, sadistic witch who made decisions to harm people on purpose.

The reality of course, as ever, is somewhere inbetween.

I do think Thatcher handled it badly but Scargill seemed to employ even worse tactics, was too radical and to me seemed to exploit some communities a little.

I don't think Thatcher didn't care (anyone who relies on being elected has to) but I think she didn't understand those communities and assumed the basic principles of the free market which do usually work, would work on this case.

They didn't because of the specifics of geography. I do think at heart that both sides knew this was a declining industry mind and as badly handled as it was do we really wish to go back? Do we really want unions to have that power over our lives? Do we really wish away all the Thatcherite' reforms? (Most of which are the basis of the single market anyway). I dunno. There's still such strength of feeling on it all. To me it's a bygone age and one that I never knew and the focus should be on a potentially bright future ahead for the valleys.

[Once U shop, U can't stop]

Re: The Miners Strike

The crucial sentence in Sludge’s post that you were replying to is ‘When areas rely heavily on industry, the removal of that industry should be gradual and other employent provided’. Thatcher and her cohorts didn’t want this, they wanted an already crowded existing labour pool to be flooded to overflow..

You may believe this; you may want to believe this. Show us your proof for this assertion.

My memory of this time (as someone who lived through it) is that the country staggered through one strike after another called by the militant leaders of trade unions of coal miners and postmen (to name but two). We had to cope with continual disruption including loss of power for chunks of time which disrupted industry, lost the country millions in trade and made life a misery for ordinary folk. Not least OAPs who were living at the top of tower blocks when the power went off. People who were not enduring the 1970s/80s have little conception of what life was like in those days - and none of it was down to them. It was collateral damage largely caused deliberately by militant unions.

As one Blog put it:

"SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN BRITAIN
The 1970’s, a decade of strikes, including postal workers, miners and dustmen which ended with the ‘winter of Discontent’ when ITV went off air for five months. A three-day week launched in 1972 to save on electricity because of the miners strike."

Something had to be done to resolve this situation. A few powerful individuals were holding the country to ransom - and it wasn't the government.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: The Miners Strike

You may believe this; you may want to believe this. Show us your proof for this assertion.

My memory of this time (as someone who lived through it) is that the country staggered through one strike after another called by the militant leaders of trade unions of coal miners and postmen (to name but two). We had to cope with continual disruption including loss of power for chunks of time which disrupted industry, lost the country millions in trade and made life a misery for ordinary folk. Not least OAPs who were living at the top of tower blocks when the power went off. People who were not enduring the 1970s/80s have little conception of what life was like in those days - and none of it was down to them. It was collateral damage largely caused deliberately by militant unions.

As one Blog put it:

"SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN BRITAIN
The 1970’s, a decade of strikes, including postal workers, miners and dustmen which ended with the ‘winter of Discontent’ when ITV went off air for five months. A three-day week launched in 1972 to save on electricity because of the miners strike."

Something had to be done to resolve this situation. A few powerful individuals were holding the country to ransom - and it wasn't the government.

The Thatcher government were elected in 1979, the miners strike was five years later and things had been changing in terms of union power just as the eighties were beginning. To give two examples, I can remember unions being banned in GCHQ in 1980 I think it was on the ludicrous grounds that membership of a union would somehow make you less patriotic and more likely to sell state secrets.

In 1981, I spent a couple of nights picketing outside Companies House to try and persuade the drivers of the postal vans delivering mail to turn around. It was an all night job because the vans could come at any time, but we still had fairly regular checks by the police to make sure there were no more than six of us as per the recently passed laws on picketing.

You’re talking as if the seventies and eighties were the same when it comes to union power, they weren’t, they were completely different. Scargill was a throwback to the seventies, but the odds were well in favour of the Government and police in 1984 because of the laws that had come in years earlier to curb union power (which I agree had got too much).

Ten years or so before the last miners strike, Heath had called an election where the question he asked was “who governs Britain?”, was it him and his Government or the unions. Heath lost, but if there had been the same election held in 84/85 under the who governs Britain banner, the answer would have been very different. The country had changed and the Government had legislated to make sure it couldn’t happen again.

There was no need for Thatcher to behave the way she did after what was an inevitable victory over the miners, but magnanimity was never something she possessed.

[Once U shop, U can't stop]

Re: The Miners Strike

^^^
Bob, you are not reading my post with understanding - it was primarily to do with the 1970s.
And you are conveniently totally forgetting the 1973 miners strike.
I have a clear picture of postmen's strikes. My father-in-law was a postman. They would go on strike at the drop of a hat. Surely you will acknowledge that.
BTW, I was a member of a trade union in the 1970s - and have never voted Conservative.