I Am British

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHyb7ELmHbA] It was decided back in the 1980s that Britain would do without Coal it was brutal the Miners went on strike for about a year to save their jobs but to no avail it was well planned by the government the Police were harsh it's a blot on the history of Great Britain and once the mines were closed no real employment was placed in the mining areas just Dole high unemployment over thirty years have past and it's easy to see now the mistakes that were made and are still being made.

This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »

Malcolm · 61-69, M

I also remember the disruption caused to ordinary people by those strikes. The police were doing their job, trying to break up violent episodes in the picket lines. The strike was also illegal because no ballot had been made. The simple matter is that the coal was becoming increasingly uneconomic to mine, and there was declining demand. Why should and government subsidise (at the expense of taxpayers) a declining industry? The unions were holding the country to ransom - isn't that just as much a blot on the history of Great Britain?

SW-User

I always felt not having a ballot was a huge mistake. I think they would have won a ballot and avoided having the lack of one used against them. I lived in Nottingham during the strike and was at Orgreave. My memory of the time us police went far beyond doing their job, especially in South Yorkshire. Remember the reputation of the South Yorkshire police from this period is already pretty tarnished from how they handled the Hillsborough disaster. UK coal was uneconomic in comparison to heavily subsidised polish coal. There was also a bug shift to gas powered power stations, a resource we now rely on imports from Russia for. Coal is still mined but it's virtually exclusively open cast, which doesn't involve the NUM.

senghenydd · M

@Onecharmingman: Not having a ballot yes that was a mistake the government intended closing the mines we know that to be true I worked near Cardiff Docks at the time and there was cheap Polish Coal coming into Cardiff I could clearly see the ships being unloaded I am annoyed the Home Secetary has decided not to look into the violence shown in the recent videos shown on television it's clearly a case of Police oversteping their authority those Police officers should be brought to justice it's an outrage they won't be, and as I've previously stated the Rhondda has a great deal of unemployment and sadly a large percentage of the young people who are unemployed are Drug Addicts I was talking to another member of this web site who lives in the USA and he stated before I did that there are large areas in the USA which were former Coal Mining Areas which now have high unemployment and a high percentage of these communities are Drug Takers. The end of Coal (Deep Mining) was brutal and quick too quick it was dole instead of Coal

SW-User

@senghenydd: Agree entirely. There was a lot of violence and mistakes on both sides but I think defeating the NUM was z key part of Thatcher's long term goals. There are many times still affected, there even some mining villages near where I grew up in Stoke on Trent that havs disappeared completely. A fraction if the money that was used to support the financial industry would have helped and we're seeing it all again at Port Talbot.

senghenydd · M

@Onecharmingman: Yes I agree and Port Talbot is really another story we never imposed Tariffs Chinese Steel imports is finishing off our Steel Industry once it's gone it will never return the USA and Canada have imposed tariffs and and have protected their Steel Industry one of the problems of being a member of the EU I'm sorry to say