That was truly terrible tragedy, my heartfelt condolences. I've written about what happened to your husband, but as you rightly point out, it's not covered in this talk.. There is so much more to tell that will be reflected during this 40th anniversary year.
The miners strike was a grinding, shocking, dreadful metaphor, for the reality of what Thatcher did to this entire country, top to bottom. And we're still paying the price, North, South, East or West. As someone that grew up in Surrey, we were taught that miners were the enemy. I knew nothing of what these communities went through, and the news and the government just made them out to be trouble makers, moaning union trouble makers. Having left Surrey in 1993, and I grew up, I now know how beyond horrendous this was, and the lies. You wouldn't treat dogs like these people were. I blame no-one but her, Thatcher, for the state this country is in now. This wasn't "just jobs / just industry / modernisation" this was entire communities, lives, ways of living. indefensible. Selling the country's soul and assets in its desperate desire to be America, and push capitalism. Now we're are on a road to nowhere. When its all out of living memory, when we're all long gone, I hope history's books actually see what that harridan of a Prime Minister, and her henchmen, did. The death of heavy industry took away pride, took away belonging, identity. Working for Tesco doesnt replace that.
It was only when I started researching the final chapter of our book ('The Legacy') that this really came home to me - even though I grew up in a mining community myself.
Completely irrelevant, there was no intention to replace the industry or manufacturing, the government at the behest of their corporate masters goal was to turn this island into a low wage low skill nation with an economy built on access to debt. Deskilling trades & increasingly relying on imported engineering skills. They can't build stuff anymore, ie; nuclear power stations & a whole range of engineering plant. Who are people like you kidding? Unbelievable!
'She' (i.e. me!) didn't go into the ins and outs of the politics in this talk - it would take more than 18 minutes - but that's in our book with a chapter about what happened when Thatcher came to Wales in June 1984.
@@amandapowell8876Fair enough, i was a kid then and suffered the following strike this time with teachers, UK national strike 1985-7, we were put on a 2 day schoolweek to start with for 3 months when prelim studies started then periodically got told of "the next wave" over and over again which brought plenty de ja vu being periodically told that in 2 year lockdown lemme tell you. Our drama teacher burst into tears having to tell us of another "wave" profusely apologising saying a bunch of strangers turned up able to vote and swung it against the good teachers clearly hijacked probably by ex miners worming into the profession to "sacrifice us for the cause" as one put it. You can understand me having an extremely dim view of such politicised disruption dressed up as some "cause" by likes of Scargill.
What would you have replaced it with? There was never any intention to reinvent manufacturing & raise the standard of education & make quality goods, everyone just wants to swanny about in a suit & tie & dink dink dink a keyboard. A nation of unskilled manual workers selling imported goods & continuously raising the national debt. Short term agendas whilst the corporate elites live wherever they want in the planet as nations states & communities or society itself means nothing to these wretched greedy people.
There doesn't seem to be much mention here of the fact that the South wales coalfield voted against strike action. they were not in favour of going on strike to support Yorkshire for a variety of reasons, and were actually brought out by devious means by people such as Kim Howells- unelected characters working at the heart of the NUM- although who exactly he was working for has never been properly established. The strike was doomed from the moment that Scargill et al refused to hold a national ballot - in doing so they instantly lost the support of the TUC and the labour party. The so called scabs on here are simply people abiding by the results of a democratic decision, made in accordance with NUM rules. It is my opinion that the South wales miners were hung out to dry by the people at the top of the NUM, and used as pawns in the game of chess between 2 megalomaniacs- Scargill and Thatcher. It's mentioned here that the union was not aware of the amount of preparation the government had done before the strike- they were- but when the figures came back saying how much coal was stockpiled, Scargill refused to believe it, saying they were somehow fake.
Both the miners and Mrs Thatcher were wrong in their aproach to the strike, many other people lost their jobs (especially in the service industries and village communities). If Mrs Thatcher had made it possible for other industries to move into the mining areas, the blow wouldn't have been half as bad. Arthur Scargill wanted a strike no matter what the cost or consequences to his union members. To prove his power.
The coal industry in the UK had steadily declined from 1910 onwards. Twice as many coal mines had closed under the Soviet agent Wilson than under Thatcher.
Twice as many mines but only 43% of mining jobs. 80% of mining jobs were lost under Thatcher and in the years of Tory rule since UK mining continued to decline and now pretty much entirely dead. Why would any union agree to further jobs loses only 10 years after agreeing to significant mine closes and job losses under the Labour government? Your own point makes it clear it was about Thatcher deliberately antagonising trade unions for political campaigning reasons.
@@maxpowerii7368 Once North Sea oil and gas were on tap it was over for mining. It's all about green energy now. Labour has publicly committed to increasing net zero.
I’m in one of the stills at Garw, I worked with Jeff, a true legend
Couldn't agree more - very impressive that he was awarded an MBE in 2003 for the voluntary work he did in the years after the strike.
.The world has changed a lot since 1984 , for the better or not I think the latter. Great speech.
Thank you!
Lord Kinnock confirmed in 1993 that Scargill was to blame for the closure of the coal mines.
One thing not shown, was the photograph of the death of the taxi driver, taking a working miner ( my husband ) to work.
That was truly terrible tragedy, my heartfelt condolences. I've written about what happened to your husband, but as you rightly point out, it's not covered in this talk.. There is so much more to tell that will be reflected during this 40th anniversary year.
Scab
@@inghog666 The strike was illegal.
@@inghog666that’s my fuvking DAD your talking about 🥊😡
@@gavinwilliams3140 And your fuvking DAD was a scab or have I missed something ?
The miners strike was a grinding, shocking, dreadful metaphor, for the reality of what Thatcher did to this entire country, top to bottom. And we're still paying the price, North, South, East or West. As someone that grew up in Surrey, we were taught that miners were the enemy. I knew nothing of what these communities went through, and the news and the government just made them out to be trouble makers, moaning union trouble makers. Having left Surrey in 1993, and I grew up, I now know how beyond horrendous this was, and the lies. You wouldn't treat dogs like these people were.
I blame no-one but her, Thatcher, for the state this country is in now.
This wasn't "just jobs / just industry / modernisation" this was entire communities, lives, ways of living. indefensible. Selling the country's soul and assets in its desperate desire to be America, and push capitalism. Now we're are on a road to nowhere.
When its all out of living memory, when we're all long gone, I hope history's books actually see what that harridan of a Prime Minister, and her henchmen, did. The death of heavy industry took away pride, took away belonging, identity. Working for Tesco doesnt replace that.
Two world wars and Lend-Lease caused deindustrialisation.
Germany and the United States had surpassed Britain by 1890.
It was only when I started researching the final chapter of our book ('The Legacy') that this really came home to me - even though I grew up in a mining community myself.
Does she make sure to avoid mentioning that labour closed much more mines than Thatcher?
Completely irrelevant, there was no intention to replace the industry or manufacturing, the government at the behest of their corporate masters goal was to turn this island into a low wage low skill nation with an economy built on access to debt. Deskilling trades & increasingly relying on imported engineering skills. They can't build stuff anymore, ie; nuclear power stations & a whole range of engineering plant. Who are people like you kidding? Unbelievable!
'She' (i.e. me!) didn't go into the ins and outs of the politics in this talk - it would take more than 18 minutes - but that's in our book with a chapter about what happened when Thatcher came to Wales in June 1984.
@@amandapowell8876Fair enough, i was a kid then and suffered the following strike this time with teachers, UK national strike 1985-7, we were put on a 2 day schoolweek to start with for 3 months when prelim studies started then periodically got told of "the next wave" over and over again which brought plenty de ja vu being periodically told that in 2 year lockdown lemme tell you.
Our drama teacher burst into tears having to tell us of another "wave" profusely apologising saying a bunch of strangers turned up able to vote and swung it against the good teachers clearly hijacked probably by ex miners worming into the profession to "sacrifice us for the cause" as one put it.
You can understand me having an extremely dim view of such politicised disruption dressed up as some "cause" by likes of Scargill.
@@wotdoesthisbuttondo There were certainly no winners :(
@@KeithWilliamMacHendry Labour introduced net zero and the Climate Change Act.
Coal mining should have been phased out during the 1960s.
What would you have replaced it with? There was never any intention to reinvent manufacturing & raise the standard of education & make quality goods, everyone just wants to swanny about in a suit & tie & dink dink dink a keyboard. A nation of unskilled manual workers selling imported goods & continuously raising the national debt. Short term agendas whilst the corporate elites live wherever they want in the planet as nations states & communities or society itself means nothing to these wretched greedy people.
@@KeithWilliamMacHendry People were not going to buy coal from the UK when they could buy it much more cheaply from elsewhere.
mrs powell i can not find your book on the internet i would love to read it. it sounds so intresting! how can i find it online?
There doesn't seem to be much mention here of the fact that the South wales coalfield voted against strike action. they were not in favour of going on strike to support Yorkshire for a variety of reasons, and were actually brought out by devious means by people such as Kim Howells- unelected characters working at the heart of the NUM- although who exactly he was working for has never been properly established. The strike was doomed from the moment that Scargill et al refused to hold a national ballot - in doing so they instantly lost the support of the TUC and the labour party. The so called scabs on here are simply people abiding by the results of a democratic decision, made in accordance with NUM rules. It is my opinion that the South wales miners were hung out to dry by the people at the top of the NUM, and used as pawns in the game of chess between 2 megalomaniacs- Scargill and Thatcher. It's mentioned here that the union was not aware of the amount of preparation the government had done before the strike- they were- but when the figures came back saying how much coal was stockpiled, Scargill refused to believe it, saying they were somehow fake.
I couldn't fit everything into the 18 minutes that TEDx talks are allotted - there's more about this in our book Coal and Community in Wales though.
Both the miners and Mrs Thatcher were wrong in their aproach to the strike, many other people lost their jobs (especially in the service industries and village communities). If Mrs Thatcher had made it possible for other industries to move into the mining areas, the blow wouldn't have been half as bad. Arthur Scargill wanted a strike no matter what the cost or consequences to his union members. To prove his power.
The self-described "Stalinist" Scargill destroyed the NUM by starting a fight he could not win.
Thatcher was at the time Satan's Emissary on Earth.
Why? For reducing the basic rate of income tax, leaving tens of millions of workers better-off?
The coal industry in the UK had steadily declined from 1910 onwards.
Twice as many coal mines had closed under the Soviet agent Wilson than under Thatcher.
Twice as many mines but only 43% of mining jobs. 80% of mining jobs were lost under Thatcher and in the years of Tory rule since UK mining continued to decline and now pretty much entirely dead.
Why would any union agree to further jobs loses only 10 years after agreeing to significant mine closes and job losses under the Labour government? Your own point makes it clear it was about Thatcher deliberately antagonising trade unions for political campaigning reasons.
@@maxpowerii7368 Coal mining should have been phased out during the 1960s.
@@MarkHarrison733 and replaced by what exactly? the imported gas that is causing much of today’s present energy crisis you mean?
@@maxpowerii7368 Once North Sea oil and gas were on tap it was over for mining.
It's all about green energy now.
Labour has publicly committed to increasing net zero.
@@MarkHarrison733 not really. majority of natural gas consumed in UK is foreign import gas.