Quote Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie View Post
I try to hang around for a few pages when complex subjects come up - as it's so interesting to read the experiences and views of others in the first place. Not to hang onto anyone's coat tails but to take on board more information than I had before the thread started. The advantage of participating in a message board is that we have the benefit of more than just our own experiences and knowledge.
Having been brought up in Cardiff and only taking in what was presented in the limited media, I have no personal experience to relate but I have always thought that the miner's strike was just as much about class war as anything else. This country has been blighted with that cancer longer than many of our European neighbours and it was evident in the workplace and in the forces at that time (and still hung around in the latter for quite some time, something I do have experience of, having been a civilain working with naval officers and visiting naval bases. (I wasn't merely a junior civil servant but by some quirk I was always afforded naval officer status on naval bases, which meany I was waited on in plush restaurant areas rather than sitting down on formica tables in the ratings' canteen where it was self-service.
I'm not of the left nor the right precisely as I have never wished to fall down on one particular side and having lived and worked abroad in Germany in the late 70's the following class characteristics that we had at the time seemed to be absent or minimal:

1. Academic qualifications v qualifications in Engineering etc (white v blue collar)
2. Private schools (seemed to be less than encouraged)
3. Bosses v worker conflicts
4. Royalty
5. Honours Lists
6. Hereditary Peers
7. Apprenticeships
8. Us v them

My personal experiences and memories may have been limited or faulty and I have no interest in taking a unilateral or myopic tack of any description. I do think the class divide was partly responsible for many ills in industry in the 70's though. I think it may have changed to a great degree but perhaps it'snow more about an income divide is now drawn a bit lower down the ladder, as it were.

Just a few thoughts and I certainly don't think I know it all!