Thatcher has died

Very probably Gorki. Where I live (right on the coast) there are still lots of mariners cottages and some very large houses once owned by Sea Captains and the likes. How interesting.

It certainly is,*Gillybob*. I must do some more research to find out exactly where the family were.My grandmother remarried and ended up in Boldon Colliery but Harton certainly rings a bell and earlier members of the family lived at Westoe (The Bramptons ) but I think they were mariners rather than miners.

Its a small world Gorki isn't it? One of my grandad's joined the army (second world war) to escape the dreaded pits. As a miner he would not have been called up but did so voluntarily as a means of escape. Sadly after the war he went straight back to where he came from and ended his working life in his early 50's suffering with chronic lung disease, but lived well into his 70's.

I am really interested in this information about the mines as it is a part of my family history I would like to know more about. My grandfather was a miner in South Shields (Harton Colliery rings a bell gillybob ) He joined the Army in 1915 (was it to get away from the pit?) but unfortunately was killed at the Battle of the Somme. My father was 4 at the time and on becoming14/15 took himself all the way to London to avoid a life of mining .He got a job as a chef in the Quality Inn in Leicester Square and that is how we came to be living in the South rather than South Shields.

Cannybairn your post moved me to tears. My grandad(s) both of them spent their life underground in Harton and Westoe collieries. Both suffered horribly with coal dust on their lungs. Here in Tyneside though , Arthur Scargill is still seen as some kind of hero who "stood up to the Iron Lady".

I think that was a case of an accidental good outcome, from bad policy. Better policy would have been safe mining techniques.

As a trade unionist and Thatcher hater myself, I still hold Scargill in contempt, because he had no idea how to fight for the workers in modern times. His methods were outdated and counterproductive. He wanted to preserve the old ways, and pit village life, when miners just wanted better pay and conditions, and the chance to buy a decent home somewhere nice.

Having said that, there is NO WAY I would let any member of my family go down the pit!!

My husband was brought up by his grandparents, and his Gran arranged a pit job for him at 15. He went down once, told the bloke to take him back up top the minute he saw where he'd be working. The man obliged, and Terry walked away. He was scared of his tough old Gran, but more horrified of the thought of working down there!!

(He ended up in a mill, then as an apprentice painter and decorator, then went to art college, then joined the Navy!!)

I WAS TRAINING FOR UNDERGROUND WORK IN THE COAL MINE WHEN NEAR BY 83 MINERS WERE BLOWN UP AT EASINGTON COLLIERY COUNTY DURHAM, I WAS NOT QUITE 16. AT 16 I WAS PUTTING OFF A DUCKBILL MACHINE IN FIRST NORTH FIVE QUARTER SEAM MURTON COLLIERY. MY LITTLE PIT PONY WAS A TERRORIST IN DISGUISE, HE WOULD EAT MOST OF MY JACKET AS I LED HIM TO WORK. I UNDERSTOOD HIM, HE HAD REASON TO COMPLAIN, BUT THOSE FOLK WHO ARE AGAINST MARGRET THATCHER ARE STUPID, SHE SAVED HIS LIFE AND MINE AND THOUSANDS LIKE ME, YOUNG LADS HEADING FOR A LIFE OF COAL. MY MOTHER HELPED GET ME OUT OF THERE AND I JOINED THE RAF. 20 ODD YEARS LATER HAVING BECOME AN AIRCRAFT ENGINEER-WELL, I MADE IT TO THE TOP, I LEFT AND BUILD EXPERIMENTAL ENGINES FOR A COMPANY, --ARTHUR SCARGILLS GRAVE SHOULD BE ON TOP OF A PIT HEAP WHERE YOUNG CHILDREN LOOKED FOR COAL IN THE COLD BLEAK DAYS OF THE MINERS STRIKE AND ON TOP OF HIS GRAVE A URINAL WHERE ALL THOSE WHOSE FATHERS DARED TO DEFY THE UNION CAN KEEP THE BUGGERS GRAVE MOIST AND YOU COULD PUT TONY BEN BESIDE HIM. WHEN I TALKED TO MUM ABOUT THE PIT CLOSURES SHE SAID "WE WOMEN HAVE TRIED TO GET OUT CHILDREN OUT OF THOSE MINES FOR GENERATIONS, DON'T WORRY THEY WILL FIND SOMETHING" MY FATHER DIED HARDLY ABLE TO BREATH WITH COAL DUST ON HIS LUNGS. IT TOOK A WOMAN TO SAVE THE YOUNG MINERS, REGARDLESS OF WHY SHE DID IT.

Nonu

No, I just hoped that a line could be drawn under this conversation

G>mum your message appears to have gone away.

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Pogs,Pogs,Pogs.

X

Don't they all.

castle , the red queen , was it the colour of the hair or political stance ?

She sure jumped on the EU gravy train , after denoucing it , if memory serves correct

I liked Harold Wilson. There were things he did I didn't agree with and he had his critics but who doesn't?

He was very dedicated to improving the education of the general population in order to push the country forward in science and technology. He spent more on education and got the Open University going.

He reduced the gap between rich and poor - increased higher rates of tax. Although the Prices & Incomes Policy didn't work, it was something that was also unsuccessfully tried in several other countries at the time. He raised pensions, tripled the widow's pension and introduced redundancy payments.

He built 1.3 million council houses between l965 and 1970. He introduced the Option Mortgage Scheme for people on low incomes. He brought in protection for tenants and gave grants for house renovation.

The Race Relations Act, the Equal Pay Act and de-criminalisation of homosexuality were all brought in during the periods in which he was prime minister.

He wouldn't let us be dragged into the Vietnam War, which put him in the bad books of the USA - they're not the best people to antagonise.

I don't think that's a bad record.

He was also very bright and had a great sense of humour.

Liked Barbara Castle too - she would have been a great prime minister.

Yes it would. Is there a country in the western world without lorries on the same scale as here?. It 's just we are a small country and it appears we have more than our fair share. France and Germany for example cannot be compared to England as the size of those countries compared to us is so vast.

A lot of the lorries on our roads are from the EU anyway because of EU legislation which can sometimes play against our road hauliers.

Barbara Castle would have supported the railways and not the road transport lobby and this country wouldn't have been full of lorries .

She couldn't have done any worse than the weak Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan who after the disasterous governance of the stupid man Ted Heath carried on with the spending spree that brought the country down and the IMF were called in to bail us out in 1976. Might I add a fact that doesn't get reported as often as it should.

Absent

I don't think it was Dennis Thatchers money at all. It has been widely accepted that the Tory party did not want her at all, at first. The old boys network or male domination of politics was against her. That was what it was like then as we all know, whatever the colour of your politics.

She earned her right to stand as a candidate for PM and after she went through the process it was obvious she was the person for the job. It would have taken a hell of a lot of guts and determination to go through it and to win was a landmark for women.

You very often hear female MP's show respect for that fact and over the last few days it has been quite noticeable a lot of women have said so.

I think the likes of Barbera Castle and Shirley Williams would be annoyed at the thought if it was said about them and I would agree. It wouldn't be said of them though would it. These are strong women who lead the way for the empowerment of women and I for one herald them actually.

I wish Barbara Castle had been this country's first woman Prime Minister. That would have been something worth celebrating.

Wasn't there reportedly about 24 women MP's out of something like 635,, something similar, when she became an MP or indeed PM.

There was of course in opposition Barbera Castle and it would be interesting to know what people think of Barbera Castles vision 'In Place of Strife' I think it's known as.

It was if I remember correctly her vision for the democratising of the unions which Margaret Thactcher did and in my opinion changed my opinion for the good of union activity, which had brought the country to it's knees. That's why I say Margaret Thatcher could be loosely connected to saving the unions rather than the anger which accuses her of ruining them. That's a thought I know will be severely challenged but it is not meant as a challenge so please don't take it that way anybody.

Greatnan This is a classic example of how the British class system was (probably still is) a powerful force. The Tory party was full of snobs and Margaret Roberts was a grocer's daughter made good but still firmly lower middle class. Even having an Oxbridge degree didn't help because it wasn't Law, PPE, Greats, History, etc. but chemistry (like Boots dontchaknow). I don't think she would ever have made it to be PM without Dennis Thatcher's money and contacts – a point made quite subtly in the recent Meryl Streep film The Iron Lady.

Lilygran, thanks for the link, I did enjoy it (but then got seduced into reading lots of other items, including the one with the video of the base jumper whose frame broke!)

There was a programme on last night that actually made me feel almost warm towards Thatcher, when it detailed how much she was hated by the Tory Grandees who thought they had a divine right to run the Party and the country. It was a pity she had to have some of them in the Cabinet and they appear to have taken over again. Surely there must have been some women around who would be at least as good? (Although Blair's Babes proved to be a huge disappointment in many cases.) Perhaps the next generation of women MPs will have Thatcher's determination and courage but with a different set of values.

I need to check with the S.O. who comes from a mining area but I know he told me of something that was put on the news that was altered in some wayduring the miners strike; I'll ask him when he gets back. There is also the usual statment when there's a protest march of any kind that there was a 'disappointing turnout of 'x' number of people' [usually in the thousands] which makes it sound as if not many people turned up [I know that for a fact because that did happen to marches that I was on].

Moved

It's not just the papers it's the 'spin' of television too. I know that's what you meant, not being pedantic.

It is always nice to see, listen and watch for yourself but naturally that is impossible to do most of the time. It's always good to wacth Parliament live, it is quite an eye opener and I do find I could pick a hole in an awful lot of politicians claims whilst they are talking in the media. A lot of them could be done for 'Trades Discriptions'