Why we should never forget what the Tories did to the minersPaul Routledge
Twenty-four years ago today, the miners marched back to work. Heads held high, banners waving, brass bands playing, wives trundling babies, they gave up the year-long strike.
It was a heart-rending sight.
I was there, in South Elmsall, West Yorkshire, when the families of Frickley Colliery toiled up Westfield Lane, scene of pitched battles with the police.
But that was as far as they got, because Kent miners, intent on securing an amnesty for sacked lads, picketed the pit gates.
So there was no work that day. Only 11 out of the 1,810 men at that pit scabbed. "And they were off ***'d 'uns," an old collier growled.
Frickley was a state-of-the-art mine, producing a million-plus tonnes a year at low cost.
Its coal would be snapped up at today's prices but still it shut in 1993, its reserves sterilised.
Just up the road Hatfield Colliery has been reopened - by the Russians! No such prospect beckons in South Elmsall. The site is being redeveloped for "executive" homes and a park.
A lot of nonsense is being talked about the 25th anniversary of the start of the strike.
Know-nothings say the miners chose the wrong time. They didn't. Thatcher chose the time and the place, when draconian anti-union laws were operational and massive coal stocks were secure. And the police were ready to act as the armed wing of the Conservative Party.
Only two questions matter.
Was the strike worth it? And the answer is yes because the miners had no option.
And: knowing what we know now, would we let it happen again? And the answer is no.
One last thing. Remember who did this. The Tories. Never to be forgotten, never forgiven.
Mirror
