Quote Originally Posted by SLUDGE FACTORY View Post
That's very true but in the mining villages there was very little alternative employment . There is and was a case for social employment ......its better than having everyone on benefits .....which Thatcher actually encouraged to take people's eyes off the unemployment figures
the Older miners were given roughly 3 years pay as redundancy payments falling to the younger miners who had worked a few years getting about 1 years money

** these figures are from my memory of the display at the big pit and might not pass your stringent fact checking tests