Who was 'Silver Birch'?


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I spoke with a former mining engineer 5 or 6 years ago, and he said that with modern mining technology and technology available to ensure cleaner  and more efficient burning of the coal available, Bri

Silas Birch... once member of the stunt moped team known as the Flying Mopedaire's.. one of their tricks was to race point to point whilst each rider stood on the saddle with arms outstreched.. on

There were certainly many aspects to the strike which have yet to be exposed. Reckon we'll have to wait for the infamous '30 year rule' for the truth to come out....hope I can last another 8 years!

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After contemplating one's navel in the bathroom, I had a sudden flash of inspiration. Ooer, you may say.

Was The Lone Rangers horse called Silver and would its full name be Silver Birch, is this why we are all getting our undergarments in a twist.

A girlvboy

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Toots that would be a brilliant connection if it was true.

I am not sure How LR & T got involved with this.

Look at my posts, the clues are there!

I will return from work at 10:30 GMT, if no answer is forthcoming, I will post it!

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Guest scooterboy

The rebel miner

Then: anti-strike activist

Now: retired miner

Chris Butcher won fame in the summer of 1984 as "Silver Birch", a shadowy miner who toured the country persuading colleagues to set up groups prepared to return to work.

Financially backed by businessmen and taken around coalfields by the Mail on Sunday, his efforts played a large part in the eventual collapse of the strike. Yorkshire miners dubbed him "Dutch Elm" after the disease that rotted trees from within.

The 33-year-old publicity-thirsty blacksmith at Bevercotes colliery in Nottinghamshire encouraged and donated £10,000 from his own fighting fund to finance the legal action that ultimately crippled the NUM.

Now retired, he left Bevercotes before it closed in 1993 for a factory job and complained the media rarely rings any more, while old workmates wrongly believed he made a fortune out of the dispute.

Still living in the same New Ollerton home in Nottinghamshire from which he plotted against the miners' leader, Arthur Scargill, Mr Butcher feels neglected. "I'm sorry if I sound bitter and I'm not bitter. I made a promise to my family quite a few years ago, I don't speak to the press, there's nothing to gain from it, all I can do is lose. You're not offering me £10,000 for my story, are you?"

After a firm "No" from the Guardian, Mr Butcher replied: "Precisely. During the dispute I had something to gain by talking. Now it ain't going to bring pits back, it ain't going to make the people who were on strike like me any more. I suppose I am bitter."

Prematurely grey hair earned him the "Silver Birch" nickname, adding to the mystery surrounding his anti-strike activities.

Instrumental in setting up the Nottingham working miners committee in May 1984, he was a flamboyant figure who basked in the limelight.

His individualistic style created resentment among other anti-strike figures and by the end of the strike he felt, with some justification, that he had been passed over.

Does Mr Butcher regret the role he played in undermining the strike?

"No. If I regret one thing, at the time Silver Birch was running round the country is that I didn't know what the story was worth," he said.

"I was offered £3,500 by the Mail on Sunday to come out in the open. I was naive at the time so, instead, I said I'd do it if they agreed to pay after the strike for a weekend away for 150 people, 75 men and their wives. After the dispute the paper didn't want to know."

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WELL AT LAST!

Well Done Scoots B)

Actually the full article with Main Player of the Strike is extremely interesting.

Scargill outlasted all of em, including Maggie!

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | No regrets from key players in dispute

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Miner's Strike 1984

At the beginning of the strike there was much discussion about the strike's legitimacy in the absence of a national ballot of National Union of Miners members. The left wing element of the union said that they didn't want miners whose jobs were thought to be secure to have the right to vote out of jobs miners whose jobs were not secure.

"How many times has Mr Scargill had his windows put in? How many times has Mr Scargill had his face beat up? How many times has Mr Scargill been kicked in the back by different, err, gentlemen? How many times has Mr Scargill condemned the violence that we've seen? I mean have you seen it? Have you been on picket lines? Have you been in the villages where people have been intimidated? The only comment I've got for Mr Scargill is this. When he speaks over the media he has never yet, as I recall, condemned the violence. In fact the only quotation I can remember him saying was, 'There will be casualties." Chris Butcher, alias, Silver Birch, who set up the breakaway Democratic Union of Miners in Nottinghamshire.

A poster seen on the picket lines read, "If you want to keep warm burn a silver birch"

At one point in the acrimonious dispute Robert Maxwell put himself forward as an intermediary to negotiate between the National Coal Board and the National Union of Miners.

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My worsening dementia hinders me seeing the connection between the Lone Ranger & Tonto and the NUM/UDM!

I would have noticed had they been present at the Cinderhill Colliery picket....

Perhaps Mick might spell it out for us oldies.

Cheers

Robt P.

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At one point in the acrimonious dispute Robert Maxwell put himself forward as an intermediary to negotiate between the National Coal Board and the National Union of Miners.

Only because he could sniff some sizeable Pension Funds !raise!

Cheers

Robt P.

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He certainly coordinated a return to work, but as a blacksmith could he be considered a striking miner?

Also with hindsight and the destruction of the mining industry as we have seen, maybe their prolonged suffering had the strike not ended would not have changed the outcome one iota. However long the strike went on the result would be the same today.

The name of the game was Destroy the Union, (and Trade Union moverment),

The fact that they would destroy an industry and the livlyhood of many communities, did not matter a jot to the Tory government at that time.

'IMHO'

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That's exactly right Mick.. they even brought in union busters from the states to infiltrate the workplace and destroy the union base from within.. all totally successful, and that's why today the working man has no rights, and why the majority of employers are able to get away with paying the minimum wage of just over £5 per hour..

the social aspect once was to treat workers with respect, even some companies offering housing and health benifits to their workforce, nowadays it's 'on yer bike' there's plenty more waiting for your job! .. also the trend is to get away without actually setting on a workforce, they merely hire them from so called agencies, basically being able hire and fire whenever they wish with no form of commitment to to the employee whatsoever..

Good old Thatcher.. knackered the country for good within one term of office, many would say she did good, and that the unions were getting too powerful, but fact of the matter is, nowadays there's a big divide between those that have, and those that haven't, and basically why so many rely on social benefits and handouts of some description to make ends meet.

my opinion.

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;) angi Posted: Feb 8 2006, 03:09 PM 

BIP, I'd have thought you could get it. 

Well angi thanks for the compliment, as you can see from the replies from other members, they know alot more about this guy than i will ever know!

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Good old Thatcher.. knackered the country for good within one term of office, many would say she did good, and that the unions were getting too powerful, but fact of the matter is, nowadays there's a big divide between those that have, and those that haven't, and basically why so many rely on social benefits and handouts of some description to make ends meet.

my opinion.[/i]

Totally agree.......excellent post Ilko!

A highly accurate resume of the Kesteven witch.

Not one person who knew her in Grantham has a good word - at Kings' School she was openly loathed and detested.

The list of the condemnations of her grows daily...

I've just read a book which summarises the evidence against her mentor/boyfriend Pinochet......

Apparently, one of his regular stunts was to have political opponents flown somewhere, on some pretext or other, then thrown from the plane whilst overflying some desolate area .... seems a nice chap.

Rather liked the Rumanian method of dealing with exposed despots.

Trial > Sentence > Firing Squad....

Can think of 2 other candidates!

Cheers

Robt P.

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Hmmmmm, makes one think about how much the government and NCB set that strike up for their own ends.. LOL

Rob might correct me as I left the NCB's employ in Nov 1968. But my terms of employment were I had to be a member of the NUM to retain my job! Now how come the NCB tolerated allowing the Notts miners to be members of another union??

I recall a lot of rivalry between us Notts mining workers and the South Yorkshire militants during the 60's when they were going to send a delegation to our coalfield drumming up support for industrial action, and we told them to sling their hooks!

Arthur made a monumental mistake by taking the Yorks miners out the gates without requesting the mandated constitutional NUM ballot. He alone cost thousands of miners their jobs, cost thousands in the mining machiner industry their jobs too.

When I worked at Boulby Potash Mine in North Yorks in the late 70's, we had a load of lads from the South Yorks area, one of them said he'd met Arthur when he worked for the NCB at a pit there. He said to me, he came very close to smacking Mr Scargill in the face!

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Ilko, reading the "bigger picture" Thatcher was one of an "elite", she was chosen for her job years ago when she was just a lowely elected politician. She was seen as a "rising bright star".

The last bastion of workers power within the UK was the miners, they represented a danger to those "in power" and had to be destryed. How??, real easy, provoke one section, divide them from another section, use all sorts of trickery.

The miners strike was planned years before it happened!

Arthur Scargill played right into Maggies hands, he couldn't have played his role better if he'd been given the script!

IF!! and I say IF, he'd ordered an immediate ballot, and the majority voted to walk off the job, Britain may have been a different place than it is now.

BUT, I still maintain to this day, that the outcome wouldn't have saved the industry, "THEY" had a "plan B" just in case, the NUM had to be broken, it was the ONLY union that could unite the working men and women of Britain against the government, maybe even have provoked a revolution, they were just too powerful!

I used to have an email debate with "Mad Red Mick" AKA Dave Douglass of Yorshire miners branch of the NUM. Even before some of the stuff I just wrote had come to light. He argued black and blue the industry would still be in tact if they had been united. He now agrees with most of what I post here.

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Hmmmmm, makes one think about how much the government and NCB set that strike up for their own ends.. LOL

There were certainly many aspects to the strike which have yet to be exposed.

Reckon we'll have to wait for the infamous '30 year rule' for the truth to come out....hope I can last another 8 years!

Could well be an amazing list of 'hidden agendas'.

Have to agree that Scargill made his own contribution to the demise of the industry especially, as you say, by his arbitrary ignoring of the ballot procedure....which, IMO, encouraged Thatcher's actions.

Somewhat Bennlike, he must have known the end result of his action - but would never admit to it.

In the days when he was worth a TV interview this matter was rarely, if ever, raised. Rather surprising as it was clearly a important pivot in the whole sorry saga.

Cheers

Robt P.

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