Hi, any ex-miners online?


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Hi,

Great site. I particulary like the part on Mundella and the Meadows, as that is where my family is from.

I was wondering if anyone could help me. I am a currently writing a dissertation on the 84/85 miners' strike.

Are there any ex-Notts miners that would be willing to answer some questions, via email, about their experiences?

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks

Paul

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Hello, and welcome.

Fortunately, I left the NCB before the strike, so I'm not much help - but there are a number of other ex-miners that hang out here. I'm sure they will be along shortly!

Good luck with your project - an interesting topic!

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Hi,

Great site. I particulary like the part on Mundella and the Meadows, as that is where my family is from.

I was wondering if anyone could help me. I am a currently writing a dissertation on the 84/85 miners' strike.

Are there any ex-Notts miners that would be willing to answer some questions, via email, about their experiences?

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks

Paul

Why not contact Margaret Thatcher, I'm sure she has a lot to say on the subject, after all she was the one that set communities against each other and destroyed the coal industry in this country on a selfish political whim.

While you are about it, ask why the powers that be think she should have a state funeral and a self congraturally statue in the Houses Of Parliament, mind you, it will be a good area to nip off to when you're caught short during a debate.

Incidentally, if any servicemen reading this get conned into taking part in her inevitable state funeral, please remember what she did to your friends and relatives, at the appropriate moment just simply walk away, they won't do every soldier, you guys are too precious and well appreciated by the real people that care about you, lets have a real protest against this scumbag.

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Wowee Firbeck, talk about getting off the fence and saying what you mean!!

I for one wouldn't be too sad to see her go , but a state funeral, who's kidding who?? is this a Labour idea to curry favour with the Torys??

Sorry to take over your post Paul and welcome by the way, I'm sure Ayupmeducks will help out as he runs a couple of miners related websites too

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Wowee Firbeck, talk about getting off the fence and saying what you mean!!

I for one wouldn't be too sad to see her go , but a state funeral, who's kidding who?? is this a Labour idea to curry favour with the Torys??

Sorry to take over your post Paul and welcome by the way, I'm sure Ayupmeducks will help out as he runs a couple of miners related websites too

Paul registered and left a message on the site Ian.

I was living and working in Australia during the "big one" So can't help.

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Why not contact Margaret Thatcher, I'm sure she has a lot to say on the subject, after all she was the one that set communities against each other and destroyed the coal industry in this country on a selfish political whim...

Exactly so...she inflicted more damage on this country than the Luftwaffe did in both World Wars...

The Tory-sponsored debate for a projected statue on St Peter's Hill in her home town lasted less than 15 minutes!

May she rot in hell...

Cheers

Robt P.

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Read this Rob. http://socialistregister.com/socialistregi..._86_Saville.pdf I agree she did more harm to the country, people only see the smashing of trade unionism, but the broader picture is lost industries that were allied and supporting the coal industry. Many millions of pounds have been lost in exports, thousands of kids have been denied apprenticeships, God only knows what the final tally has cost the UK seeing an industry destroyed!

BUT, see it from the "ruling classes" perspective, the NUM was the only union capable of a revolt that could have turned the country over to a socialist republic. That was their fear, a monarchy overthrown, a class system destroyed.

No, don't get me wrong, I hate the class system, the monarchy etc with a vengeance! The monarchy to me represents the village bully, who rapes and pillages the next village until they rule a country.

If I could back in history, I'd stand with the revolt in the Americas, I'd be there at the Boston Tea Party!

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More of a coffee man myself (Chuck that overboard and the yanks would be buggered!!)............LOL.

As an ex Carlton man (Next to Gedling ) I could only bare witness to father and son disputes etc whole families split apart, because of her. I even saw my own father nearly in tears when we got our first poll tax bill (Even though he was working class he had always voted Tory) I heard him mutter "I voted for them all my life and they go and do this to me!" Our bill had gone up from about £50 a year to nearly £400!! and we just couldn't afford it. So yes , spit on the bitch!!

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As a grammar school girl herself,I could never understand why as Education Minister she abolished the only way for the working and lower middle classes to better themselves. I think understanding Maggie is far more complex than breaking the NUM.

For instance, with the possible oil wealth around the Falklands,how many remember how she would not allow the Argi`s to occupy them. How many of you made a vast killing if you bought your council house at that time?

I had long departed the UK before Maggie emerged so never having lived through it cannot comment fully.However I will as a result of this post ,try to read up the facts.

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It seems that the NUM were determined to break the `Iron Lady'

In 1982 the National Union of Mineworkers accepted a Government offer of a 9.3% raise, rejecting their leaders' call for a strike authorisation.[39]

The confrontation over strikes, ordered illegally without a national ballot in 1984–85 by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in opposition to proposals to close a large number of mines, proved decisive.

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30+ years ago, I used to work at an architects office in the city, Royle and Whitehorn, opposite the castle gates. I was the personal assistant to John Whitehorn and we used to specialise in local authority work, using a system called C.L.A.S.P, which was designed specifically for coal mining subsidence sites. We were a good team, he would do the paperwork and the initial sketches, and I would do all the design and technical information, as well as assist in site supervision.

Between us we designed and supervised the construction of a Youth Centre at Aslockton C of E school.

One day I came in the office and found him very distraught, apparently Notts County Council had invited the then Education Minister, Margaret Thatcher, to open the new extension, but due to the number of useless, lackey, brown noses wishing for a piece of the action, there wasn't an invite for me to the ceremony, despite the fact that I'd done the majority of the work.

He was a good old boy, one of the old school, he'd been heavily involved in the Pluto pipeline for the D-Day landings, but he wasn't going to be told what to do by Thatchers mob and was about to phone up NCC and tell them to get stuffed if I couldn't go.

I managed to persuade him that rather than put the workload in jepoardy, to go along with it, I certainly didn't want to meet that cow anyway. With a twinkle in his eye, he said we'd get our own back.

He did, big time.

When the next great civil opening occured, which was Stapleford Fire Station, to which of course, I wasn't invited, he contrived to mysteriously get the foul drains blocked.

During the middle of the post opening drinks, and following complaints, he opened up an inspection chamber, pulled out a piece of plastic sheet allegedly causing the trouble, and sent a jet of raw sewage everywhere, he thought it was amazingly deflating and was laughing for weeks afterwards about it.

I would be interested to know exactly how many people had relatives and family working in the coal mining industry and it's associations.

I had a great uncle who died of Neumocosis, having spent his working life down Wilford Colliery.

My late fathers brother worked as a supervisor at Blidworth, before dying of a heart attack, no doubt due to the stresses of the job.

So many friends of mine at school had fathers who were ill, incapacitated, or even dead due to the rigours of the mining industry, I'm sure that the current Health and Safety Regulations would have eased the burden of these exploited people.

And before you call me an Essex, southern, architect softie, I've been down a mine, I've crouched in the coalface with the cutters working and the dust filling my lungs, it ain't much fun, I can assure you, trouble is, there's not much chance of people experiencing this anymore, unless you work in Russia or are exploited in the Far East.

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Does the UDM still exist?

Yep, sure does.

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It seems that the NUM were determined to break the `Iron Lady'

In 1982 the National Union of Mineworkers accepted a Government offer of a 9.3% raise, rejecting their leaders' call for a strike authorisation.[39]

The confrontation over strikes, ordered illegally without a national ballot in 1984–85 by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in opposition to proposals to close a large number of mines, proved decisive.

The dispute was planned before Maggie ever came to power Stan, it was government engineered down to the last nut and bolt. The powers that be wanted to smash the last unions power period, there's several good papers with inside information in them, long! but worth reading.

I had an on line debate with Dave Douglass, who was a top NUM rep a few years ago, long before I'd seen the white paper on the strike. I'd formulated an opinion as to what caused the strike etc. Dave, who is a full Marxist, disagreed with me. He no spouts the same as me now.

The best way to rid the country of the NUM is to close the pits, it worked!

The media were manipulated to turn public opinion against the miners, the army was used in police uniform, the UK was turned into a police state and a wedge was driven, on purpose, between the most productive coal field, Notts?Derby and the rest of the fields to create a split between the miners.

According to McGregor, the NUM boss at the time, Thatcher came close a couple of times in throwing the towel in, but Scargill made some dreadful errors and handed the union on a plate to Thatcher.

IF, and this is what Thatcher feared most, NACODS, (the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers) had followed the NUM out the doors, the strike would have been over in days. Without the Deputies, the strike was doomed from day one.

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I would be interested to know exactly how many people had relatives and family working in the coal mining industry and it's associations.

I actually come from a long line of mining stock. Both my grandfathers were miners - my mum's dad was killed in a roof fall, my father's dad left mining after the 1926 strike, but he died fairly young, probably from the effects of dust. I had several uncles who were miners, but my dad never went down. He claimed that his father told him "if you go down the mine, I'll throw you down"!

I worked underground in both England and the USA - in the states my mining work was associated with the development of dust suppression systems and ideas. I designed, and installed, the first instrumentation system that measured dust levels on a longwall face in real time!

I have no time for Thatcher (milk snatcher), or her ideas, but I will say that working in a British coal mine is the most godawful place you can ever imagine. I honestly believe there is no worse job on this earth, and I certainly do not miss going down that black hole! The romantic ideas of the camaraderie etc. are all very well - but I think if most ex-miners are honest with themselves, they will admit they do not miss the back-breaking, lung polluting holes in the ground!

"I shan't forget the times we had,

The laughing 'midst the fear.

'Cause everytime I cough I get,

A mining souvenir."

I know others may disagree, but from an engineering perspective (and a cost effectiveness standpoint), the mines were doomed anyway. Most of the profitable deep coal was mined out, and the overseas competition was strengthening. Even finding people to work underground was getting difficult - in the area I worked, the local judges would give probation violators the choice - go to jail, or work in a mine!

They may have hung on for another 20 years or so, but that would have been it. To put it in perspective, a million ton/year pit in England was unusual, in America it is one coal face! When you see a longwall in a 10ft seam, you realize why taking a 3ft seam in poor geological conditions just cannot compete. The American mines are all privately owned (no NCB here) and it is interesting to note that since privatisation, there hasn't been much profitable deep mining in the UK. As to the effect on the communities, wages, etc., the U.K passed the USA last year in average per-capita income. I wonder if that would have happened if the nationalised industries were still intact?

Like I said, others may disagree, and these are just my thoughts - and me trying to be realistic.

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"I shan't forget the times we had,

The laughing 'midst the fear.

'Cause everytime I cough I get,

A mining souvenir."

Max Boyce ......Duw it's hard......... Great, and very truthful, song.

We always said that there would be a "Completely miraculous and total and utter flukey , find of oil" in the Falklands 25 years ago , I did say at the time within 20 years .(I was only out by 5)

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What evidence is there of this?

Well, it was a well known fact, who is going to admit to this, unlikely to come from government sources is it.

Apart from that, police were deliberately drafted in from Essex and London, these people had no sympathy or understanding with Northern or Midlands working class folk, it was a good excuse for a good kicking against people they resented. I can assure you that there is a serious North/South divide, I've been putting up with the p### taking for 30 years.

Don't forget that the incidents started at Orgreave in Sheffield, a mine and coaking plant subsequently totally and deliberately obliterated off the face of the earth, along with it's local infrastructure, Tinsley marshalling yards once one of the biggest in Europe, all the associated industry, all destroyed because of the mood of the government and one person in particular.

I am not a Marxist or political activist, I've just been around a while and seen and observed what has happened to the detriment of hardworking people, shunt them off to MacDonalds or B&Q, thats what they deserve after all.

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What evidence is there of this?

The Ridley Committee report Mick. Ridley was one of Thatchers advisors and planners of the closure of the pits. He also stated MI5 was used before and during the strike and government agents were used at picket lines to stir trouble. All this only came out after the report was made public a few years back.

The NUM always said some of the police looked suspicious, ie boots were to shiny, marching was military style, uniforms too perfect etc etc.

No it's been conformed Mick, I understand even the police suspected some of their numbers were the army too!

The Ridley report was on the internet for a while, but the link is now dead.

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Couldn't agree more Firbeck old son

And there are those on here who wish to see the tories back in power!!!!

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Max Boyce ......Duw it's hard......... Great, and very truthful, song.

Thanks Beefy - I could remember the song, but not the author!

Those lines always bring a tear to my eye - so very true!

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The Ridley report was on the internet for a while, but the link is now dead.

You can find it HERE

But - be warned - it is on the "Margaret Thatcher Foundation" web site! :Shock:

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Eric. I published a link to the bean counters report to the government in the early eighties, on the Coal site. There were several pits in Yorkshire and a lot in Notts that were 1.5 million tons a year and quite profitable.

I agree when you look at pits like Angus Place in NSW where I worked for several years and at the time of the UK strike we were producing coal delivered to the power station door at $13 a tonne! It was the cheapest coal in the world at that time.

Now there are mines producing 5 million tons a year!!

But, from the bigger picture, closure of UK mines affected more than mining families, probably a few million have lost their income from none mining companies that supported the industry.

The day of the UK thin seam was over, a lot of the pits were actually on thicker seams, five foot to eight foot, especially in Derbyshire, West Yorkshire, North Notts, Staffs and some in Lancs. These were the million plus tonners, highly profitable pits, most would now be finished though.

But, once more! without a home produced energy policy, the UK is at the mercy of world prices and possibly their enemies abroad.

Coal is over $US100 a ton now on the world markets and going up daily!

I did my fair share of crawling up and down 38 inch high faces with a tool bag hanging from around my neck! Those 14 foot high seams were a Godsend!

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You can find it HERE

But - be warned - it is on the "Margaret Thatcher Foundation" web site! :Shock:

I'll make a note of it and post it on the Coal site Eric. The one I had was on a socialist site and for some reason it's now dead.

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