The Miners Strike 1984

Would it have been different if Scargill had called for a
national ballot

Two of my uncles worked at Bold colliery as young men I had great respect for them.
I was involved with the miners strikes being active in trade unions. I helped make up and distribute food boxes to striking miners families. They were very difficult times for them indeed.

We've watched all of them. Awful.

I was on a picket line with food, no fantasy, I saw police officers burn £5 notes, they really put the boot in, I add I was a police
widow

lixy

I moved from Pontypridd to London in 1984. I had a job cleaning a wine bar and have clear memories of the kitchen floor getting very thoroughly scrubbed as I was listening to the Today programme coverage of the strikes.
I recall Mrs Thatcher's strident tones resulted in a shining oven - and me wishing I could push her into it as in Hansel and Gretel,

Oh yes lixy. I and many others would have helped you with the oven plan. Her private army, the Police, were no better either.

I moved from Pontypridd to London in 1984. I had a job cleaning a wine bar and have clear memories of the kitchen floor getting very thoroughly scrubbed as I was listening to the Today programme coverage of the strikes.
I recall Mrs Thatcher's strident tones resulted in a shining oven - and me wishing I could push her into it as in Hansel and Gretel,

I never knew any miners but we marched in London (1985?)
My partner and one carried our union banner ( The NGA)

I firmly believe that anyone who ends their working day looking like this so that I get electricity deserves every penny they get.

We lived in a comunity that had been full of mines but had almost all closed. There was still bad feeling among the families who supported the strike and those who did not .

Iam64

We were involved in supporting the strike. The birth of our older child was announced at a fund raising rally, to explain why we weren’t there.
Our nearby mining community fell apart after the mines closed and no alternative employment was to be found. Mining communities were proud, that pride got lost in substance misuse, especially heroin.
An army of grandparents, aunts and uncles stepped in to care for the children whose parents could no longer offer safe, stable care because of drug addiction.
Mining was dangerous work but the way the mining communities were abandoned was cruel. It’s also costing us the long term social and economic damage.
Levelling up - don’t make me laugh

Yes indeed. The spiteful and wilful destruction of previously essential communities was wicked beyond words. They were used and abused whilst Britain built its empire and to fight wars, then discarded and ridiculed when it suited.

I'm not from a mining community but I took part in fund raising events for the miners during that time. I saw compassion and understanding but also a lot of self satisfied hostility.

It was the time of Thatcher's "big bang" in financial services when the pursuit of money was all that mattered, encouraged with almost hysterical passion from the Government.

It made me sick. It still does.

JaneJudge

Me and my husband are both from mining families. We have watched a lot of our historic local stuff on you tube. Where in Kent was your Father a miner?

What channel is this on?

My Father was a Kent miner at Chislet, Betteshanger & Tilmanstone Collieries.
We watched the programmes (a series of 3) on Channel 4 catch up

We were involved in supporting the strike. The birth of our older child was announced at a fund raising rally, to explain why we weren’t there.
Our nearby mining community fell apart after the mines closed and no alternative employment was to be found. Mining communities were proud, that pride got lost in substance misuse, especially heroin.
An army of grandparents, aunts and uncles stepped in to care for the children whose parents could no longer offer safe, stable care because of drug addiction.
Mining was dangerous work but the way the mining communities were abandoned was cruel. It’s also costing us the long term social and economic damage.
Levelling up - don’t make me laugh

I was born and brought up in a village Aberfan, my father, grandfather, great grandfather, uncles worked in Merthyr Vale
Colliery

Me and my husband are both from mining families. We have watched a lot of our historic local stuff on you tube. Where in Kent was your Father a miner?

What channel is this on?

Definitely. I also remember the Lofthouse Colliery tragedy in 1973 where many miners died.

Before I met my husband in the early 60's a boyfriend I went out with for a few months worked at Lofthouse Colliery and I often wonder if he was one of the poor men that got trapped.

My area was full of mining communities. In my class at primary school, I was the only one who wasn't from a mining family.

I do. All my uncles and grandfather were miners in the fifties. Two of my uncles died down the pits and another three died of pneumoconiosis.
My aunt was left pregnant, with four children, when her husband was killed. He baby then died at six months.

It was such a hard life. 😪

Yes, South Wales,