I grew up on a Mining Estate and now, 30 years on I wish there was a Community Spirit like there used to be back then, they were the best years of my life.
+stratos fun Im from Ireland myself so i am no fan of Thatcher to begin with, but what she did to the lovely little mining communities in England was unforgivable and makes me very angry. She wanted a cut throat, US style, me me me society and she has largely succeeded unfortunately.
Absolutely frightening how accurate the prophecies in this video turned out to be. Are these documentaries being shown in schools? no! this important part of our social history has been completely erased from school curriculum.
well bleeding said.... am proud to be working class... and am a trade unionist and believe in the union and the young uns dont understand and havent a fuckin clue about the the value of strength and a being a part of a community ..... Thatchers model is still here and its sickening... soul destroying....I got tears in me eyes writing this.......gutted....gutted..... were fuckin finished....
i just spoke to someone on facebook, a millilenial generation child , of course , had no idea! she said , 1st time that she had ever heard of it ! Cant believe that were not passing this on through our children ! those who remember bloody well should!
I was born in Sheffield in 1984, I grew up with the fall out of the destruction of the coal and steel industries. I know loads of former miners and my family were mainly in steel and engineering, talking about the strikes and what’s been lost is still a raw wound that’s never to be healed. They treated those men and their families like feral dogs, not human beings.
I was born in 1979 in Littleborough, near Rochdale. All I saw as a kid was the mills and factories getting demolished. My Nan would take me to see them getting blown up and destroyed. As a kid I loved watching the buildings explode!! Yet now I realise that they were getting demolished because local industry had declined big time. We had to move to London in 1984 because my Dad couldn’t find a job locally. My Grandparents stayed there so we would see what was happening when we visited them.
And it continues with disgusting treatment of workers in warehouses. Unions too busy following a middle class agenda for the most part, they don’t back up the working class.
My great grandfather died down the pit. My granda and dad died of pit related illnesses. Coal miners daughter and proud of it. All these men wanted was the right to work to look after their families and what a bloody job, down a black hole. Good men. Respect ✊🏼.
Very strange comment. You're proud that three generations of your family died from coal mining and you're sad that Thatcher put an end to the dream of working a job which could kill others or at least shorten their lives.
@@wattage2007 No I’m proud of how hard they worked and the only good thing thatcher did was make sure no young man leaving school would end up down a pit for a living. Maybe I should have explained myself better.
This is a landmark in social commentary. Don't know where these people are now but politically aware, articulate and energetic, these people ought to be running the bloody country today. Yesterday I marched with the kellingley miners and heard much the same. Is the current situation just the death throes of thatchers -well documented-bizarre relationship with ted Heath? Anybody featured on the tape reading this, God bless yer.
I left the pits when I was 25 and now I’m not far off 60 and all those years, I’ve never experienced the camaraderie I had as a young miner. I left the area for work in 1986.
was proud to have been part of the struggle.Solid for the whole dispute. When anyone ever says Scargill shut the pits they should look at what happened to the Notts pits which produced coal and those who scabbed, got the same treatment all closed. what happened to Greaterex notts union official. Jailed for stealing money out of the pension fund of his members.Yes we lost but better to die on your feet than on your knees
Scargill closed no pits down. That man tried his hardest to keep the pits open. But That tramp Thatcher and her cronies had other ideas. Thatcher punished the miners because they brought the Tory Government down after the 1974 strike
fuckin dead right... sorry for swearing but this boils my piss .... working class familys fighting for their lifes communities .....1980s Britain coming back in 2020 trust me ....
I was a striking miner,I did the full strike picketing and all.Now 70 and retired loooking back at these times via these videos, I just fill with pride .These men older now and wiser, we did our best but you can't always win. But those women! Them lasses! Brilliant,our wives. Mothers and sisters.Such determination and loyalty, I wonder if 40 years on if todays women, some who can't be bothered to get out of their pyjamas to take the bairns to school some of them daughters of striking.miners wives could do what their parents did Now and again I see some of these women in the street,in shops and the like, and I think ,yes we went through the strike BLESS you all .
I grew up in Easington Colliery in the 80s and 90s when the pit was open it was thriving Town full of life and a high street with dozens of shops where you would now everyone you walked past. Now almost 25 years since the pit closed its a ghost town full of strangers and take away shops. My grandfather worked there for 40 years and would be ashamed of how it looks now. Their is an entire generation that have grown up seeing their parents unemployed.
People moved to Easington Colliery because of coal, and when coal became a dying industry, their descendants, understandably, wanted to stay. But my father moved from Ireland to get work in the early 1950s. Towns dependent on a single industry are always vulnerable to economic change, if the demand for what that industry produces. And demand for coal reduced. But the miners had brought down previous governments. The Dockers had also held previous governments to ransom. The power of the unions "had" to be broken. Scargill gave Thatcher the perfect opportunity to break that power. I hated the woman, but nothing could have saved the coal industry. Gas and oil are currently predominant, but that too is changing. Oil towns will have to adjust in the future, or die. Easington Colliery is not a victim of Thatcher. it's a victim of progress, and economics shift.
@@davidkeenan5642 you’re right in some ways, but not entirely. Unions are supposed to hold the power, it’s a good thing. It keeps the power balance in check, and their wins trickle down into the non union industries as well. Coal was a dying industry, no doubt about it. It’s time was limited. Still, mines were closed without putting anything in place to transition the tens of thousands of workers to a different line of work. Nothing was put in place to support the support industries that served the pits. Nothing was put in place to support the countless cities and towns whose population of thousands existed because of their pit. Pit closures thrust entire regions into poverty overnight, and it was done by threat of policeman’s club. The cruelest irony was/is the continued use of imported coal to offset the loss of domestic consumption. Instead of taking the time to transition from coal responsibly, it was done so in a manner that inflicted immense damage to the working class, and the damage is no where near finished. Thatcher irreparably hurt the UK, while she got to live in a gilded castle insulated from the destruction she inflicted, never having to live with the consequences of her campaign. She gets to rot in the ground, corpse full of maggots, not a care in the world, while the miners and their communities are still living in dead communities rife with poverty and unemployment and drugs and crime that she forced upon them.
From a Glaswegian, The UK Government should be ashamed for this treatment of upstanding grafters of many communities who fought for their livelihoods, we salute them.
look at these miners, do they look as if they have half the lifestyle the politicians who destroyed them had?... People who begrudge folk who work for industries that prop up the economy a ordinary decent wage AND YET totally accept football players, celebs, and politicians (people who have very little effect on the standard of living) can earn limitless amounts of cash should be whipped!!!!
Lee Stephenson “I have no particular love for the idealized 'worker' as he appears in the bourgeois Communist’s mind, but when I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on.” - George Orwell
I think the economy should be there to serve the people not the other way round. The same with technological advancements making life easier, not harder. The Government handed power to corporations through privatisation. So therefore the government should all be made redundant for failing to their jobs.
I started working at pit just after the strike and had 30 good years and made a lot of good mates i would go back tomorrow. All of the pits have now gone. I could have giving years ago but i tried to keep moving from pit to pit as they shut down in the end i was traveling 64 miles each way their and back some times doing a 12 hour shift on top of travel even in snow and ice but the lads made it worth it . the last place of work was KELLINGLEY in Yorkshire. but know all have gone. I pray that the coal prices go though the roof and the government will see scene but its too bloody late SO SO sad. Every one says that you can have the same crack any were i don't think so can you imagine working in a bank and some old dear asking for a tenner and you reply saying is that all want you tight **** i only wish MAGGIE is a warm place
+TommyTightPants0115 I'm glad it worked out for you, but did you consider going in to a different industry? It blows my mind that a young man would have decided that mining for a career with a future at that point.
Daniel Trubman well not many families could afford higher education in order to get into many other industries and "what about the lower industries where they didn't need a proper education?" well, mining was obviously the main one but there were also steel workers and blacksmiths- oh wait, their furnaces had to be fuled BY COAL! Can't u c the effect this had on the economy? 😒
New mine being opened soon. We are importing from abroad and are bringing it back. Tbh the unions killed mining in the uk, made it to easy to import from abroad for cheaper
I’m from a family of miners from Derbyshire I was born just after the minors lost the strike and was forced back to work all I ever wanted was to go down the pit like all my family. My old man did the same went from pit to pit following the work, I was always told my old man was a amazing header so never went with out work but in the end he was travelling more and more and he got fed up. Iv still got some old NCB magazines with pictures of my dad working. When I was a kid mooregreen pit had a open day it was one of the best days I had as a child standing by my dads side just standing in the lift was amazing wish I’d got the chance to actually get on the pit face. Respect to all these hard working great British coal minors you did our country proud and the scabs I hope you was ashamed
It was never about economics from the word go,Thatcher made her mind up what she wanted from her investiture,the breaking of the NUM and the downfall of the industry.Lots of Nott's men stood firm,some did not.But your end statement I agree with in spades.
30 Years On, the miners are still fighting and although their pits have long gone their unity still stands the test of time proving Thatcher could never break their will
You're absolutely right, these people are some of the hardest-working and honest folk that this land has ever known. Never let it be forgotten what the Tories did to them.
How do you watch 45 minutes of footage of poor people being fucked in the ass by the rich and the government and end up complaining about other poor people?
@@Peasant_of_Pontus You sound like you've never had to live in government housing. I can tell you I live in Australia and it seems like we have very similar problems.
@@truck-a-bout1958 I don't anymore but I used to live in a council flat. UK doesn't build poor ghettos anymore, council flats are decentralised. Every new buliding gets a council flat or two instead of entire neighbourhoods of them.
I wasn't born in 1984 but I'm from deepest Nottinghamshire and I feel physically ill watching this. I don't believe for one minute there's any difference between Notts miners or Durham miners or Yorkshire miners, but sadly for one reason or another they dug their heels in and ended up devastatingly colluding with Thatcher. Everything the lads say in this video is true. Communities have collapsed and it's like living in a nuclear wasteland here now. I've never been involved with the mining industry but I only wish the strike was happening today because I'd be on the picket line pleading with the UDM to come out on strike. What a fucking disaster.
+Bobby Jones It's also a forgotten subject, something not being taught in schools as part of modern history. Absolutely disgraceful how these men were treated, they're without doubt some of the bravest men of their time. I'm not sure I'd have the balls to work a 12-hour shift a thousand feet under the soil, not many could and if we had to rely on the ruling classes to find the nation coal, we'd have all died off about a hundred and fifty fuckin' years back. Labour till I die.
Gabriel Stone To be honest Gabe, the industry part of life is now so far gone that teaching about the destruction of it wouldn't really resonate with them. You've got to have had something or lived with it to appreciate the demise of it. I dare say my kids will be having this same conversation in 30 years time about the death of British steel and the NHS.
Watching this video Thirty plus years on with tears in my eyes pride in my heart. I still retain all those principles which I shared with the other 30 gentlemen in my group THE DiRTY 30. We have unfinished business! I am 84 now and I still believe we were right! I still share friendships with ex strikers from that era and am proud to carry our banner at the Durham Miners gala every June . Gordon Smith. 2022.
I was 11 when the strike was on. There was McGregor, Thatcher and the riot squad on one side, and Arthur Scargill and the miners on the other. I swear to God, I'm nearly 50 now, and from back then to this day I DETEST management.
I agree with you buddy. My dads best man and the closest mate he had from childhood have never spoke since the strikes all because he wouldn’t do what was right by the minors and strike it should of always been one out all out
I remember watching the miners getting beaten by the police while families suffered and fat Tories bloated on gluttony. I hope kids these days are taught this Era. It's as important now as it was then.
To the lot of you harping on about subsidies fod thatchet and her tory cronies ever think to not subsidies british arms manufacturers or farming both of which would be unprofitable without massive taxpayers help.
I remember that the miners in Nottinghamshire refused to join the strike and several years earlier had formed their own union called the Union of Democratic Mineworkers. Eventually though they finally admitted that Arthur Scargill had been right all along.
Of course you are right, those Notts miners that came out and stayed out were the salt of the earth and did have it harder than the rest of us. They are not forgotten my friend
In Leicestershire, there were so few that struck that they got called "the dirty thirty". Oddly enough, these 30 men were often called "scab" by other miners in Leics. They were perceived as having betrayed their colleagues and sided with another area. After a while, there were collections done in other areas to raise money for them.
Look how grimy and down at heel the eighties were. Things had to change. Mistakes were made on all sides, but to this day I never understood how it was cheaper to import coal from the other side of the world.
Grandson and nephew of Mines ime proud of my rout's and lived through the strike s God bless all those Miners and families that stood solid and resolute ❤
Labour closed twice as many mines than Thatcher The strike was between the unions and Scargill taking on Thatcher and Thatcher not backing down Thatcher didn't screw the miner's , Scargill and the unions did
The thing about the pits and the mining communities is that there was one type of work and no other. These places relied solely on the pit for employment and there was nothing else. also the men wernt trained in anything else. when the car factories closed most people got other jobs quickly. also you had a variety of folk working on the tracks- hairdressers, plumbers etc who could fall back on their trades.
I remember all this but looking back 40 years later I get the impression that people back then were less worldly wise than people now but at the same time we’re more mature and responsible in their outlook.
I was 9 when this strike took place and within 10 years I lost my first friend to drugs the after another 10 years I lost the rest of my friends to drugs. I believe the destruction of the unions,mines and eventually the close communities we had lead to the deaths of my old pals.
lee jarvis The Unions caused alot of problems, as they were full of communists & they brought it on themselves. They were a problem that needed to be dealt with, harshly. Ken Livingstone did the same thing in the GLC & that got dissolved by Thatcher, because of militants ousting the rightfully-elected leader. However, innocent people in these communities, like mining, ship-building & car manufacturing all paid the price for those militants.
Sorry to hear that my friend. The miners and their communities were the salt of the earth, and what was done to them(and the rest of the working class) is going to hurt for decades more. We haven’t yet seen nor understand the full extent of the damage Thatcher and Reagan did to the English and American working class. Criminals, both of them. May they rest in piss!
I love the Miners there families and the communities but sorry Arthur Scargill walked them right into the trap set by Thatcher. They had record stocks of coal, he did not have a ballot. The Nuclear industry got a subsidy he should have taken that to court as unfair competition the moment that hit the court all investment in Nuclear would have stopped Sorry but Thatcher played a very clever game Scargill played a very stupid game and the Miners there families and the communities paid the price.
All of this takes me back to the good old days. Back when there were good communities who stuck together. Don't really see this nowadays. People got fucked over by the Government . 😢😢😢
The way the police and the establishment stitched up hundreds if not thousands of normal working class people during the miners strike is nothing short of disgusting.
They were so convinced the coal was worth the money, truth was it wasn't worth jack shit which is why the money didn't ever turn up, the only place it was worth burning was the power stations MGR system. But leaving behind a body of working men the size of this was a fucking disgrace, and those towns were destroyed.
What strikes me is, thees man and women are facing losing their jobs possible their home but they aren't swearing or attacking people. My partners grandfather was a miner and she is really upset by the mines closeing, that's why I'm watching to see what went on
In mining you are battling against Mother Nature.Sometimes you come across a white face caused by a collapse in the strata and a pit would become uneconomic. But that can change. A pit may have a bad year, then find anew seam and have 30 more good years.Also, when the closures began, we had already developed and opened a clean coal plant. But when you are involved in revenge, when you are determined to do better than Heath and tame the miners, rationalisation and reason go out of the window.
It was never about profitability of the odd pit, the coal we mined went predominately to power stations that where built around the mines. these stations did then and still do today make vast profits! the profits they made went back to the public up until that evil witch privatised them. In 1984, she closed a receiving pit, Cortonwood. A receiving pit has a long life ahead of it. It is not uneconomic.
My Dad worked down the Stoke and Lancashire Coalmines for almost 40 years. He loved his job and couldn't settle down in any other form of work. The Labour Party actually closed down more pits than the Tories Did but it was Thatcher's attitude to the Miners that caused the 1984\85 strike. She hates the Miners because of the way they topped the Heath Government and made sure to cause the strike and beat the strongest Union so that the rest of the Unions would also fall and her plan worked the might of the Unions was over
I was a miners strike child and remember the hardship and the money issues as a child growing up realised there and then the class disparities in the UK which have only got bigger and wider
@@Ukipmiddleleft I was a miners strike child too. 1972\74 the 74 strike finally brought down Heath and his cronies. But the 84 strike actually broke the NUM and that was exactly what Thatcher wanted when she broke the NUM all the other Unions fell like Domino's
11.40 that chap looks a bit like Jim McDonald- for all the Corrie fans. In seriousness though god bless these men and women who worked and fought so hard
I'm wanting to talk to someone who crossed the Pickett line just to get a insight on their thoughts and feelings behind it. With all the strikes currently taking place and cost implications of doing so it will be good to see the difference from 40 years ago. Can anyone help
I remember as a student working at a Royal Mail sorting office in Nine Elms, and it was only a temporary summer job. But I had harsh words from the picketline and people trying to throw things at me for simply turning up at work. Slightly different to this situation I know, because I can imagine losing your job can be soul-destroying. I have mixed feelings - total sympathy for the miners and their families for the way they were treated, but at the same time its does appear that collieries and coal plants had been closing down for decades and the world was moving on, oil/gas and nuclear power. I don't think nowadays Yorkshire kids would want to work down a mine. Communities destroyed, yes. So it's a failure of government and Thatcher to provide an alternative plan for regeneration and employment options.
just recently posted an Emotive Tribute to ALL Coal miners everywhere plus those that were killed in the biggest mining disaster in Scotland UK at the Blantyre pit, its done in pics and music .. would be grateful for your feedback Alex Hodgson "Blantyre" A Scottish Mining Disaster
Ask scarily where the Russian money went.😢. A scarily took his full back pay after the strike. The union had to take him to court to reclaim a grace a favour flat in Central London 20 yrs after the strike 😢..
Shame those miners were so stubborn and stupid to listen to a far left subversive like scargill. I also hate how they treated the so called "scabs", the miners who went back to work to look after their families. That was just disgusting but not really surprising given they were people who would never listen anyway.
Union should have recommended strike and give us a proper ballot No one would have gone through the picket line if they got the result for strike from a National ballot Everyone would have been out
@@Mod-rw9cw that is a conflation, police work for capitalists who tend to side with fascists and individual officers are more likely to be sympathetic to fascism, but honestly if police are all fascists we would live in a fascist system rather than a capitalist one which is bad enough!
Fascinating video thanks for posting and that's coming from someone who's definitely more free market capitalist than socialist. The miners are not 'think as pig shit northerners', they make coherent, passionate arguments and even though I think the closures were right based on the fact that from 1970 to 1990, coal output only decreased by some 22 million tonnes while manpower decreased by a whooping 210,000 hours, it doesn't mean their cause and cost to their communities wasn't real.
Heres a true story i mate who is also a miner. And he had a misses who born with no EAR'S. So they gave her a two set of plastic ones. A brown pair for the summer and a white pair for the winter. Any way one day they purchased a new car and as they drove back home with the their new car he had to drive down the M1 motor way to the next junction and as he was just getting the hang of his new car he then opened the passenger's window and to is horror the wind blow off one of her ears and so he had to stop the car on the hard shoulder and has he looked through his rear mirror. But then a transit van ran over her left hear. the police came and retrieved the ear but it looked like a NAN bread we saw them out later that evening having a drink and he says to me if you notice any thin different about my wife please don't say or just say have got a new dress
I wouldn't mind being a coal miner , must be great fun and you get free coal ! a free turkey at xmas , free housing and paid summer breaks when no one needs coal .
The days when we had police!! Who were used as military! These men and women are the sons and daughters of britains who went through and helped win ww2, who sacrificed then began rebuilding. These people had their strong values and worked hard and just wanted to be happy, live decent lives and a government of toffs replaced British values with greed. Now another 2 gens on, we are unrecognisable in comparison to the people in this video and those of their parents. Anyone of those times knows what I mean
I grew up on a Mining Estate and now, 30 years on I wish there was a Community Spirit like there used to be back then, they were the best years of my life.
+stratos fun Im from Ireland myself so i am no fan of Thatcher to begin with, but what she did to the lovely little mining communities in England was unforgivable and makes me very angry. She wanted a cut throat, US style, me me me society and she has largely succeeded unfortunately.
+stratos fun Too Right!
+stratos fun. Move abroad if you don't like it here.
How can you take it serousilly? People moaning about not having money but smoking? Simply quit.
Thatcher was right.
Absolutely frightening how accurate the prophecies in this video turned out to be. Are these documentaries being shown in schools? no! this important part of our social history has been completely erased from school curriculum.
Literally had this explored in detail in my geography lesson
well bleeding said.... am proud to be working class... and am a trade unionist and believe in the union and the young uns dont understand and havent a fuckin clue about the the value of strength and a being a part of a community ..... Thatchers model is still here and its sickening... soul destroying....I got tears in me eyes writing this.......gutted....gutted..... were fuckin finished....
i just spoke to someone on facebook, a millilenial generation child , of course , had no idea! she said , 1st time that she had ever heard of it ! Cant believe that were not passing this on through our children ! those who remember bloody well should!
40 years on and Maggie was right! Bless her. Life still exists. Bring in more immigrants and give them benefits. Yhis is the real issue!
@@stephenjackson4195 the irony is that the union killed mining in the uk
I was born in Sheffield in 1984, I grew up with the fall out of the destruction of the coal and steel industries. I know loads of former miners and my family were mainly in steel and engineering, talking about the strikes and what’s been lost is still a raw wound that’s never to be healed. They treated those men and their families like feral dogs, not human beings.
I was born in 1979 in Littleborough, near Rochdale. All I saw as a kid was the mills and factories getting demolished. My Nan would take me to see them getting blown up and destroyed. As a kid I loved watching the buildings explode!! Yet now I realise that they were getting demolished because local industry had declined big time. We had to move to London in 1984 because my Dad couldn’t find a job locally. My Grandparents stayed there so we would see what was happening when we visited them.
And it continues with disgusting treatment of workers in warehouses. Unions too busy following a middle class agenda for the most part, they don’t back up the working class.
My great grandfather died down the pit. My granda and dad died of pit related illnesses. Coal miners daughter and proud of it. All these men wanted was the right to work to look after their families and what a bloody job, down a black hole. Good men. Respect ✊🏼.
Very strange comment. You're proud that three generations of your family died from coal mining and you're sad that Thatcher put an end to the dream of working a job which could kill others or at least shorten their lives.
@@wattage2007 No I’m proud of how hard they worked and the only good thing thatcher did was make sure no young man leaving school would end up down a pit for a living. Maybe I should have explained myself better.
Life's full of contradictions...you'll learn
@@headron66 Yeah, maybe you should’ve engaged your brain before typing a load of noble sounding meaningless tripe.
Better to be contrary than a scab!
This is a landmark in social commentary. Don't know where these people are now but politically aware, articulate and energetic, these people ought to be running the bloody country today. Yesterday I marched with the kellingley miners and heard much the same. Is the current situation just the death throes of thatchers -well documented-bizarre relationship with ted Heath? Anybody featured on the tape reading this, God bless yer.
Well said mate. "politically aware, articulate and energetic, these people ought to be running the bloody country today." Bang on.
men that knew their industry inside and out
I left the pits when I was 25 and now I’m not far off 60 and all those years, I’ve never experienced the camaraderie I had as a young miner. I left the area for work in 1986.
Ex miner and proud of it , God bless you all 👍🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
The Yorkshire man who mentioned the women, you Sir, are a true gentleman. ❤️
was proud to have been part of the struggle.Solid for the whole dispute. When anyone ever says Scargill shut the pits they should look at what happened to the Notts pits which produced coal and those who scabbed, got the same treatment all closed. what happened to Greaterex notts union official. Jailed for stealing money out of the pension fund of his members.Yes we lost but better to die on your feet than on your knees
Scargill closed no pits down. That man tried his hardest to keep the pits open. But That tramp Thatcher and her cronies had other ideas. Thatcher punished the miners because they brought the Tory Government down after the 1974 strike
Yeah unions are so great, their officials rob their members' pensions.
Fine, upstanding, principled, hard working people. This country will never see your like again.
Hear hear
fuckin dead right... sorry for swearing but this boils my piss .... working class familys fighting for their lifes communities .....1980s Britain coming back in 2020 trust me ....
@@stephenjackson4195 very true mate!.
I was a striking miner,I did the full strike picketing and all.Now 70 and retired loooking back at these times via these videos, I just fill with pride .These men older now and wiser, we did our best but you can't always win. But those women! Them lasses! Brilliant,our wives. Mothers and sisters.Such determination and loyalty, I wonder if 40 years on if todays women, some who can't be bothered to get out of their pyjamas to take the bairns to school some of them daughters of striking.miners wives could do what their parents did Now and again I see some of these women in the street,in shops and the like, and I think ,yes we went through the strike BLESS you all .
I grew up in Easington Colliery in the 80s and 90s when the pit was open it was thriving Town full of life and a high street with dozens of shops where you would now everyone you walked past. Now almost 25 years since the pit closed its a ghost town full of strangers and take away shops. My grandfather worked there for 40 years and would be ashamed of how it looks now. Their is an entire generation that have grown up seeing their parents unemployed.
People moved to Easington Colliery because of coal, and when coal became a dying industry, their descendants, understandably, wanted to stay.
But my father moved from Ireland to get work in the early 1950s. Towns dependent on a single industry are always vulnerable to economic change, if the demand for what that industry produces. And demand for coal reduced.
But the miners had brought down previous governments. The Dockers had also held previous governments to ransom. The power of the unions "had" to be broken. Scargill gave Thatcher the perfect opportunity to break that power.
I hated the woman, but nothing could have saved the coal industry. Gas and oil are currently predominant, but that too is changing. Oil towns will have to adjust in the future, or die.
Easington Colliery is not a victim of Thatcher. it's a victim of progress, and economics shift.
@@davidkeenan5642 you’re right in some ways, but not entirely. Unions are supposed to hold the power, it’s a good thing. It keeps the power balance in check, and their wins trickle down into the non union industries as well.
Coal was a dying industry, no doubt about it. It’s time was limited. Still, mines were closed without putting anything in place to transition the tens of thousands of workers to a different line of work. Nothing was put in place to support the support industries that served the pits. Nothing was put in place to support the countless cities and towns whose population of thousands existed because of their pit. Pit closures thrust entire regions into poverty overnight, and it was done by threat of policeman’s club. The cruelest irony was/is the continued use of imported coal to offset the loss of domestic consumption. Instead of taking the time to transition from coal responsibly, it was done so in a manner that inflicted immense damage to the working class, and the damage is no where near finished. Thatcher irreparably hurt the UK, while she got to live in a gilded castle insulated from the destruction she inflicted, never having to live with the consequences of her campaign. She gets to rot in the ground, corpse full of maggots, not a care in the world, while the miners and their communities are still living in dead communities rife with poverty and unemployment and drugs and crime that she forced upon them.
Tories twats
From a Glaswegian, The UK Government should be ashamed for this treatment of upstanding grafters of many communities who fought for their livelihoods, we salute them.
awesome people,very proud,brought tears to my eyes,awesome,i was yorkshire miner,nostell colliery,west yorkshire,13 years underground
One word ' dignity '.
Signed Malc Bird, Ex derbyshire miner & proud.
Dignity doesn't put food in your mouth
The greedy Miners lost in the end but Arthur Scargill got rich out of it!! plus he scammed the Miners funds for his own Bank Account.
At the time I regarded them as Arthur Scargill's storm troopers trying to beat a government ,this film reinforces that view.
look at these miners, do they look as if they have half the lifestyle the politicians who destroyed them had?... People who begrudge folk who work for industries that prop up the economy a ordinary decent wage AND YET totally accept football players, celebs, and politicians (people who have very little effect on the standard of living) can earn limitless amounts of cash should be whipped!!!!
Lee Stephenson “I have no particular love for the idealized 'worker' as he appears in the bourgeois Communist’s mind, but when I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on.” - George Orwell
Lee Stephenson that is so so true
nobody won you clown.
I think the economy should be there to serve the people not the other way round. The same with technological advancements making life easier, not harder. The Government handed power to corporations through privatisation. So therefore the government should all be made redundant for failing to their jobs.
heelfan1234 you must be very lonely
Still not recovered up here in the North from the deliberate decimation of the coal and steel industries .
coppers made plenty out of it loads of overtime while all the miners suffered we should be proud of the miners through history.
I started working at pit just after the strike and had 30 good years and made a lot of good mates i would go back tomorrow. All of the pits have now gone. I could have giving years ago but i tried to keep moving from pit to pit as they shut down in the end i was traveling 64 miles each way their and back some times doing a 12 hour shift on top of travel even in snow and ice but the lads made it worth it . the last place of work was KELLINGLEY in Yorkshire. but know all have gone. I pray that the coal prices go though the roof and the government will see scene but its too bloody late SO SO sad. Every one says that you can have the same crack any were i don't think so can you imagine working in a bank and some old dear asking for a tenner and you reply saying is that all want you tight **** i only wish MAGGIE is a warm place
+TommyTightPants0115 I'm glad it worked out for you, but did you consider going in to a different industry? It blows my mind that a young man would have decided that mining for a career with a future at that point.
Daniel Trubman well not many families could afford higher education in order to get into many other industries and "what about the lower industries where they didn't need a proper education?" well, mining was obviously the main one but there were also steel workers and blacksmiths- oh wait, their furnaces had to be fuled BY COAL! Can't u c the effect this had on the economy? 😒
New mine being opened soon. We are importing from abroad and are bringing it back.
Tbh the unions killed mining in the uk, made it to easy to import from abroad for cheaper
Tories are scum
I’m from a family of miners from Derbyshire I was born just after the minors lost the strike and was forced back to work all I ever wanted was to go down the pit like all my family. My old man did the same went from pit to pit following the work, I was always told my old man was a amazing header so never went with out work but in the end he was travelling more and more and he got fed up. Iv still got some old NCB magazines with pictures of my dad working. When I was a kid mooregreen pit had a open day it was one of the best days I had as a child standing by my dads side just standing in the lift was amazing wish I’d got the chance to actually get on the pit face. Respect to all these hard working great British coal minors you did our country proud and the scabs I hope you was ashamed
My Grandfather was a miner for 41 years before his pit closed in 1968... He got £2,000.
It was never about economics from the word go,Thatcher made her mind up what she wanted from her investiture,the breaking of the NUM and the downfall of the industry.Lots of Nott's men stood firm,some did not.But your end statement I agree with in spades.
Deirdre Barlows everywhere. Big perms and big glasses.
30 Years On, the miners are still fighting and although their pits have long gone their unity still stands the test of time proving Thatcher could never break their will
You're absolutely right, these people are some of the hardest-working and honest folk that this land has ever known. Never let it be forgotten what the Tories did to them.
Lol they kept their will but not their job! 😂
@@booopdooop and scargill wasn't much better another twat out to feather his own nest
Im from a mining family in north wales my dad was down pit over 35yrs
If pits were open now we wouldnt be full of smackheads in council houses and immigrants
How do you watch 45 minutes of footage of poor people being fucked in the ass by the rich and the government and end up complaining about other poor people?
@@Peasant_of_Pontus You sound like you've never had to live in government housing. I can tell you I live in Australia and it seems like we have very similar problems.
@@truck-a-bout1958 I don't anymore but I used to live in a council flat. UK doesn't build poor ghettos anymore, council flats are decentralised. Every new buliding gets a council flat or two instead of entire neighbourhoods of them.
Spot on !
The capitalists imported the immigrants, don't blame other poor people, that is how they divide us so easily.
I wasn't born in 1984 but I'm from deepest Nottinghamshire and I feel physically ill watching this. I don't believe for one minute there's any difference between Notts miners or Durham miners or Yorkshire miners, but sadly for one reason or another they dug their heels in and ended up devastatingly colluding with Thatcher. Everything the lads say in this video is true. Communities have collapsed and it's like living in a nuclear wasteland here now.
I've never been involved with the mining industry but I only wish the strike was happening today because I'd be on the picket line pleading with the UDM to come out on strike. What a fucking disaster.
+Bobby Jones It's also a forgotten subject, something not being taught in schools as part of modern history. Absolutely disgraceful how these men were treated, they're without doubt some of the bravest men of their time. I'm not sure I'd have the balls to work a 12-hour shift a thousand feet under the soil, not many could and if we had to rely on the ruling classes to find the nation coal, we'd have all died off about a hundred and fifty fuckin' years back. Labour till I die.
Funny... how the subject isn't taught in schools while the schools have been run under a conservative government for so long
Gabriel Stone To be honest Gabe, the industry part of life is now so far gone that teaching about the destruction of it wouldn't really resonate with them. You've got to have had something or lived with it to appreciate the demise of it. I dare say my kids will be having this same conversation in 30 years time about the death of British steel and the NHS.
it wasn't about that. if you thought you could trust them?
Watching this video Thirty plus years on with tears in my eyes pride in my heart. I still retain all those principles which I shared with the other 30 gentlemen in my group THE DiRTY 30. We have unfinished business! I am 84 now and I still believe we were right! I still share friendships with ex strikers from that era and am proud to carry our banner at the Durham Miners gala every June . Gordon Smith. 2022.
Arthur’s doing fine lads. He owns his Barbican flat outright, probably worth about 2 million now. 🍾🥂
These miners know what they r talking about,the way they were treated by the tories the police and media was absolutely disgraceful
We are now making a Russian mine owner very rich as we have to purchase our coal from there because we cannot provide our own anymore.
I was 11 when the strike was on.
There was McGregor, Thatcher and the riot squad on one side, and Arthur Scargill and the miners on the other.
I swear to God, I'm nearly 50 now, and from back then to this day I DETEST management.
👏👏👏✋✌
a scab is a scab I will never forget or forgive
Why?, just because they wanted to look after their own families, and not be led off a cliff by someone like scargill
I agree with you buddy. My dads best man and the closest mate he had from childhood have never spoke since the strikes all because he wouldn’t do what was right by the minors and strike it should of always been one out all out
Bloody heart breaking i lived through the strike on the Northumberland coal field it decimated the area with the pit closures
I thought I sounded Yorkshire until I watched this 🤣
They're Derbyshire miners.
God bless the miners❤️
I remember watching the miners getting beaten by the police while families suffered and fat Tories bloated on gluttony. I hope kids these days are taught this Era. It's as important now as it was then.
Im a miners daughter and I learned never trust a Tory
Scargill was a self-described "Stalinist" who destroyed the coal industry and the NUM by starting a fight he could not win.
To the lot of you harping on about subsidies fod thatchet and her tory cronies ever think to not subsidies british arms manufacturers or farming both of which would be unprofitable without massive taxpayers help.
I remember that the miners in Nottinghamshire refused to join the strike and several years earlier had formed their own union called the Union of Democratic Mineworkers. Eventually though they finally admitted that Arthur Scargill had been right all along.
some forget there were some Notts miners who came out on strike.Those who did had it the hardest of all the coal miners on strike.NEVER FORGET THAT.
Of course you are right, those Notts miners that came out and stayed out were the salt of the earth and did have it harder than the rest of us. They are not forgotten my friend
In Leicestershire, there were so few that struck that they got called "the dirty thirty". Oddly enough, these 30 men were often called "scab" by other miners in Leics. They were perceived as having betrayed their colleagues and sided with another area. After a while, there were collections done in other areas to raise money for them.
Look how grimy and down at heel the eighties were. Things had to change. Mistakes were made on all sides, but to this day I never understood how it was cheaper to import coal from the other side of the world.
This video is incredible. These men and woman are hero’s for the rights of workers all around the world ❤
Grandson and nephew of Mines ime proud of my rout's and lived through the strike s God bless all those Miners and families that stood solid and resolute ❤
Labour closed twice as many mines than Thatcher
The strike was between the unions and Scargill taking on Thatcher and Thatcher not backing down
Thatcher didn't screw the miner's , Scargill and the unions did
Correct, he's a shithouse scargill. The worst general of an army in history, Thatcher was right to shut these places down.
Arthur Scargill got very rich off of the backs of the miners.
Don’t forget about the $9 million blood money from Libya that was ment for the minors yet didn’t see a penny
The thing about the pits and the mining communities is that there was one type of work and no other. These places relied solely on the pit for employment and there was nothing else. also the men wernt trained in anything else. when the car factories closed most people got other jobs quickly. also you had a variety of folk working on the tracks- hairdressers, plumbers etc who could fall back on their trades.
police earn`t enough to buy a new house cash on the over time they did....
Scargill did not give his wages to the miners strike only person who did was Dennis skinner.
I remember all this but looking back 40 years later I get the impression that people back then were less worldly wise than people now but at the same time we’re more mature and responsible in their outlook.
Not really, times were very different is all
I was 9 when this strike took place and within 10 years I lost my first friend to drugs the after another 10 years I lost the rest of my friends to drugs.
I believe the destruction of the unions,mines and eventually the close communities we had lead to the deaths of my old pals.
lee jarvis The Unions caused alot of problems, as they were full of communists & they brought it on themselves.
They were a problem that needed to be dealt with, harshly.
Ken Livingstone did the same thing in the GLC & that got dissolved by Thatcher, because of militants ousting the rightfully-elected leader.
However, innocent people in these communities, like mining, ship-building & car manufacturing all paid the price for those militants.
Sorry to hear that my friend. The miners and their communities were the salt of the earth, and what was done to them(and the rest of the working class) is going to hurt for decades more. We haven’t yet seen nor understand the full extent of the damage Thatcher and Reagan did to the English and American working class. Criminals, both of them. May they rest in piss!
I'm from Liverpool,, Thatcher ripped the shit out of the dockers in Liverpool as well,,,,bless the miners👍👍👍👍
Liverpool voted for impoverishment.
I love the Miners there families and the communities but sorry Arthur Scargill walked them right into the trap set by Thatcher. They had record stocks of coal, he did not have a ballot. The Nuclear industry got a subsidy he should have taken that to court as unfair competition the moment that hit the court all investment in Nuclear would have stopped Sorry but Thatcher played a very clever game Scargill played a very stupid game and the Miners there families and the communities paid the price.
I was arrested at Babbington Colliery in Nottingham April 9th 1984.
All of this takes me back to the good old days. Back when there were good communities who stuck together. Don't really see this nowadays. People got fucked over by the Government . 😢😢😢
Never was the phrase lions led by donkeys been more apt.
Great Grandad retired in 1984, he first went down the pit in the war years. Disliked Scargill just as much as he did Thatcher.
My grandad was the same, hated scargill cos he wouldn’t have a national ballot, said it would have never happened under Gormley
The way the police and the establishment stitched up hundreds if not thousands of normal working class people during the miners strike is nothing short of disgusting.
They were so convinced the coal was worth the money, truth was it wasn't worth jack shit which is why the money didn't ever turn up, the only place it was worth burning was the power stations MGR system.
But leaving behind a body of working men the size of this was a fucking disgrace, and those towns were destroyed.
Proud of these families.
I wish our police still looked as competent and imposing as they do here.
Miner's United!
We'll continue our cause, for England!
What strikes me is, thees man and women are facing losing their jobs possible their home but they aren't swearing or attacking people. My partners grandfather was a miner and she is really upset by the mines closeing, that's why I'm watching to see what went on
In mining you are battling against Mother Nature.Sometimes you come across a white face caused by a collapse in the strata and a pit would become uneconomic. But that can change. A pit may have a bad year, then find anew seam and have 30 more good years.Also, when the closures began, we had already developed and opened a clean coal plant. But when you are involved in revenge, when you are determined to do better than Heath and tame the miners, rationalisation and reason go out of the window.
Correct, and infact Labour closed 93 pits under Harold Wilson
13:46 ........its like he knew the future 🤣🤣
It was never about profitability of the odd pit, the coal we mined went predominately to power stations that where built around the mines. these stations did then and still do today make vast profits! the profits they made went back to the public up until that evil witch privatised them. In 1984, she closed a receiving pit, Cortonwood. A receiving pit has a long life ahead of it. It is not uneconomic.
My Dad worked down the Stoke and Lancashire Coalmines for almost 40 years. He loved his job and couldn't settle down in any other form of work. The Labour Party actually closed down more pits than the Tories Did but it was Thatcher's attitude to the Miners that caused the 1984\85 strike. She hates the Miners because of the way they topped the Heath Government and made sure to cause the strike and beat the strongest Union so that the rest of the Unions would also fall and her plan worked the might of the Unions was over
I was a miners strike child and remember the hardship and the money issues as a child growing up realised there and then the class disparities in the UK which have only got bigger and wider
@@Ukipmiddleleft I was a miners strike child too. 1972\74 the 74 strike finally brought down Heath and his cronies. But the 84 strike actually broke the NUM and that was exactly what Thatcher wanted when she broke the NUM all the other Unions fell like Domino's
11.40 that chap looks a bit like Jim McDonald- for all the Corrie fans. In seriousness though god bless these men and women who worked and fought so hard
Massive goalkeeping error there,big lad with the peno 👍👌
I'm from Stainforth but have never seen this prog as i lived in Germany at the time. It's great to see loads o familiar faces.
I'm wanting to talk to someone who crossed the Pickett line just to get a insight on their thoughts and feelings behind it. With all the strikes currently taking place and cost implications of doing so it will be good to see the difference from 40 years ago. Can anyone help
I remember the 1994 strike and believed that the miners were right.
I hope the Lord will put his hands in all that.
Those boys were well and truly "shafted".
I remember as a student working at a Royal Mail sorting office in Nine Elms, and it was only a temporary summer job. But I had harsh words from the picketline and people trying to throw things at me for simply turning up at work. Slightly different to this situation I know, because I can imagine losing your job can be soul-destroying. I have mixed feelings - total sympathy for the miners and their families for the way they were treated, but at the same time its does appear that collieries and coal plants had been closing down for decades and the world was moving on, oil/gas and nuclear power. I don't think nowadays Yorkshire kids would want to work down a mine. Communities destroyed, yes. So it's a failure of government and Thatcher to provide an alternative plan for regeneration and employment options.
The mines would have closed anyway due to the Climate Change Act.
@@markharrison2544completely different decade buddy.
just recently posted an Emotive Tribute to ALL Coal miners everywhere plus those that were killed in the biggest mining disaster in Scotland UK at the Blantyre pit, its done in pics and music .. would be grateful for your feedback
Alex Hodgson "Blantyre" A Scottish Mining Disaster
Ask scarily where the Russian money went.😢. A scarily took his full back pay after the strike. The union had to take him to court to reclaim a grace a favour flat in Central London 20 yrs after the strike 😢..
Don’t forget the £150.000 that come over from Libya in briefcases then there’s the $9million that was never all was recovered
Wonderful people, cheers for the upload 👍
Looking back I believe we, the working class, let the miners down. THE TUC should have called a general strike.
thanks for uploading. this really helped give me some perspective i was missing.
It's so interesting ! Britain and its working class ! The lives of the British miners in 80 years. English White bone and and ...strikes?
Shame those miners were so stubborn and stupid to listen to a far left subversive like scargill. I also hate how they treated the so called "scabs", the miners who went back to work to look after their families. That was just disgusting but not really surprising given they were people who would never listen anyway.
Vale of Belvoir was the biggest failure by the coal board. Only lasted a few years before it was shut down.. 😂
Union should have recommended strike and give us a proper ballot
No one would have gone through the picket line if they got the result for strike from a National ballot
Everyone would have been out
Nice Time Piece. Well Posted
Thatcher didn't care about the generations she destroyed. Pretty much like the torys of today.
GOOD BRAVE MEN, COWARDLY POLICE..
This shows that the job of police is to protect capitalists as why they are the violent force constraining humanity.
Police are fascists
@@Mod-rw9cw that is a conflation, police work for capitalists who tend to side with fascists and individual officers are more likely to be sympathetic to fascism, but honestly if police are all fascists we would live in a fascist system rather than a capitalist one which is bad enough!
02:15, this was the best house in the North they could find to film in 😂
Thatcher, we want small government. Also Thacher during strikes.......
Fascinating video thanks for posting and that's coming from someone who's definitely more free market capitalist than socialist.
The miners are not 'think as pig shit northerners', they make coherent, passionate arguments and even though I think the closures were right based on the fact that from 1970 to 1990, coal output only decreased by some 22 million tonnes while manpower decreased by a whooping 210,000 hours, it doesn't mean their cause and cost to their communities wasn't real.
Heres a true story i mate who is also a miner. And he had a misses who born with no EAR'S. So they gave her a two set of plastic ones. A brown pair for the summer and a white pair for the winter. Any way one day they purchased a new car and as they drove back home with the their new car he had to drive down the M1 motor way to the next junction and as he was just getting the hang of his new car he then opened the passenger's window and to is horror the wind blow off one of her ears and so he had to stop the car on the hard shoulder and has he looked through his rear mirror. But then a transit van ran over her left hear. the police came and retrieved the ear but it looked like a NAN bread we saw them out later that evening having a drink and he says to me if you notice any thin different about my wife please don't say or just say have got a new dress
😆😆😆🤣🤣🤣
I wouldn't mind being a coal miner , must be great fun and you get free coal ! a free turkey at xmas , free housing and paid summer breaks when no one needs coal .
The days when we had police!! Who were used as military! These men and women are the sons and daughters of britains who went through and helped win ww2, who sacrificed then began rebuilding. These people had their strong values and worked hard and just wanted to be happy, live decent lives and a government of toffs replaced British values with greed. Now another 2 gens on, we are unrecognisable in comparison to the people in this video and those of their parents. Anyone of those times knows what I mean
I got married in Doncaster. She was a fine Yorkshire woman. A Vicking.
#CoalNotDole also, Nottingham miners must have a lot of regret for their original stance.
DISLIKE THE IRON WITCH AND SCARKILL ,DID HE HAVE THE SAME BARBER AS TRUMP , MOST POOR PEOPLE RICH IN SPIRIT, MOST RICH PEOPLE POOR IN SPIRIT!!
We don’t burn coal now, rightly so, what would happen to all them now, still be out of a job.
Err, yeah we do for steel production!
@@bereal6590 how much coal we need for our limited steel production vs how much was used for power generation??
@@dominicmackrill5953 I don't know, but I do know transportation across the planet is a really stupid idea if you want to lower co2
Why rightly so your about 14yrs old do wouldn’t really understand. Saying that your probably 1 of these vegan stop oil prats
If it was all thatchers fault y not when labour got back involved didn't they open the pits back up 😢
I still live in this village.x
Guy at 11.40 is spot on, hope he's in politics now.