The 1984–1985 Miners' Strike in Nottinghamshire by Jonathan Symcox Dennis Skinner

Author:Jonathan Symcox, Dennis Skinner [Jonathan Symcox, Dennis Skinner]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Great Britain, General
ISBN: 9781783408856
Google: WwTMDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Published: 2011-11-02T15:58:02+00:00

Friday 14 September

Five cars of flyers, eighteen men, away by 4.30am to Bevercotes – they have their re-ballot after the police refused access to the lads on strike first time around. During the early hours, so the news tells us, 2,000 pickets were turned back; four of our five cars got through after doing a lot of mileage. I am now convinced that our strategy is too predictable: if lads had been directed to hit two different targets, we would have achieved a much better result. The police again prevented the lads from voting.

Our own picket of twelve men has made the first full count in weeks. The result surprised me: for the three-shift 24-hour period, there were approx 900; this is showing well over 400 men still away from work. Allowing for sick notes and rest days, we must have well over 100 on strike. The attitude of the men has changed greatly today: they are more verbally aggressive than in a long time and the scabs are hearing more truths about themselves than of late. This afternoon a Canadian camera crew showed up – the first in a while I haven’t told to piss off.

News that the talks had broken down came as no surprise to me but I know that a lot of our people were dismayed when they heard it. It has been obvious from Leon Brittan’s1 disgraceful comments on ‘life sentences for picket line jack-boot thugs’ that any settlement chance would be sunk before it got too far. Maggie’s puppet MacGregor has no authority to negotiate independently to end the dispute and now they barely bother to conceal the fact. I’m afraid that this is now a ‘fight to the death’.

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