The Miners Strike - the Bitter Legacy
Many commentators, like this one in The Times, refer to it as a . The-then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called her opponents . The language alone stands as testimony of one of the bitterest periods of industrial unrest in recent British history.
The year-long miners' strike - which began in earnest 25 years ago this week as a response to a government pit closures programme - has been variously defined as the last stand of the working class under attack or an attempt to curb union power which was claimed to have done so much damage to the British economy in the 70s.
The truth, as always, falls somewhere between the two.
Twenty five years on has seen the nostalgia industry move in - with a slew of , documentaries and - hard though it might be to believe - the strike making a charting the last 120 years or so of British life - and of course British baking.
If you're too young to remember the strike should fill in the gaps.
Alongside the nostalgia, the writers of history on both sides have been busy creating their own drafts - a Tory Radio blog reprints on the strike - and the old leader of the National Union of Mineworkers Arthur Scargill has been writing at length with .
Interestingly, alongside the Scargill article, the Guardian felt the need to print an some of his comments. The wounds are still deep.
Not surprisingly, many events of that year became ingrained on the conscience; , , flying pickets and bussed-in police, , of a dead south Wales taxi driver and the colliery bands playing on the march back to work.
91Èȱ¬ has used the anniversary to present a wide-ranging collection of material looking at the importance of coal mining to Britain. Several Panoramas about the strike feature; The Coal War, Is the Coal face Crumbling? and How Much Longer?
One Panorama film which didn't make their collection - The Bitter End? - was broadcast in December 1984 as the strike entered its ninth month. The film looked at the violence of the strike - police on miner, miner on police and perhaps most caustic of all - miner on miner as the ferocity of the struggle reached a peak. You can watch an abridged sequence here.
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That peak though also marked the beginning of the end of the strike - unable to achieve the aim of forcing the government's hand by bringing about power cuts, the strikes leadership saw the government's resolve harden and by early 1985 a return to work seemed inevitable.
Such a left no real winners. The miners returned to work en masse defeated but proud. The government continued with its pit closures programme. The Conservative hierarchy of the time, in the shape of former Trade and Industry Secretary "the scale of the closures went too far. The damage done to those communities was enormous".
Lord Tebbit's comments highlight the obvious losers - the rank and file miners who found themselves between a government intent on the closure of much of their industry and a union leadership which backed them into a corner.
The mine-workers' unions never had widespread public support for the strike - the lack of a national ballot on strike action was often said to be crucial in that - but the dignity and strength of the miners and their families .
Public sympathy was not enough to stop the pit closures programme of course and today - 25-years on from the miners' strike - operate in the UK.
Comment number 1.
At 12th Mar 2009, Brighton-Nick wrote:As a person born in a mining community, today on the odd occasions that I return the scars of the strike are still there. They may not be visible ones but they are still in the mindset of many of the people.
It's about time the miners were recognised for the part they played in helping create this country. It's long overdue that a long hard look at the role of those communities were re-assessed and viewed in the whole not purely on the events of 25 years ago.
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Comment number 2.
At 15th Mar 2009, TGR Worzel wrote:Re:1
We discussed that very point in Andrew Neils Daily Politics blog on the 91Èȱ¬, just over a week ago, but it's all hidden under the post title Busy Day at the Banks, so not immediately obvious...
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