Reply With QuoteNo I worked at Woolley Colliery near Darton mate .Originally Posted by Lolmorgan
It's a huge housing estate now called Woolley Grange .
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Blimey, Roly, for someone who doesn't like assumptions, you do make an awful lot.
I've visited the National Mining Museum and before anyone is reduced to abusive apoplexy, no, I don't suppose the sanitised tourist version puts over an accurate impression of how unpleasant it was.
During my student days, I worked in the summer for a firm of industrial cleaning contractors. I am one of, I would imagine, the few people who knows what it's like to use a pneumatic drill to remove scale and residue inside the chimneys at Aldwarke. One of the few to suffer nose bleeds for weeks afterwards because of the acidic dust that was created. And that was one of the more pleasant tasks. Shovelling steel scale one of the least
And those 12 hour nights, with the first four being spent in the obligatory trips to The Foljambe - no wonder British Steel struggled financially.
As for working 9-5... Really? You try picking up a brief that you have never seen before at at 7pm knowing that you have to be completely on top of it for the trial starting at 10am the next day, with someone's liberty riding on it. I will make an assumption of my own, which is that you would struggle with the pressure.
I'm not sure where you think I've demonsteted a lack of empathy on this thread. Perhaps that's just another assumption of yours!
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No I worked at Woolley Colliery near Darton mate .
It's a huge housing estate now called Woolley Grange .
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Kerr, Ok so you do show empathy for others in your opinion. Tell me how the tories show empathy for people who work in dangerous jobs or zero hour contracts. You see it seems to me that your likely vote would not help these kinds of workers at all.
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It's a pity that the miner's strike has been brought up, but now the can of worms is open, here's my take.
Whatever they had achieved for working people in the past, the increasing militancy of British TUs and the failure of successive governments to address the same had caused significant damage to the UK economy in the 60s and 70s. They had made the UK an unattractive place to operate and invest and fuelled the inflationary spiral that had priced British businesses out of the market such as to fuel the unemployment that animal talks about. They had also become a political force - bringing a Heath government down and rendering Callaghan unelectable in 1979.
There was always going to be a catastrophic confrontation as soon as a government came along with the strength of will to confront the TUs.
The NUM had a game plan - turn off the lights and win. Unfortunately for them, they didn't have a plan B and Thatcher was a keen follower of the game.
Governments ultimately answer to the electorate and I think the NUM would still have had a shout if they had borne that in mind. Whether due to arrogance or a simple failure to recognise how important public sympathy was, the NUM set about alienating the country - failing to give members the national ballot it's constitution entitled them to and unleashing the mob to intimidate anyone who didn't agree with them. The rest is history.
For the record, I think Thatcher showed ruthlessness and possibly a degree of vindictiveness in her handling of the strike, but I also think she acted as someone who believed that the action of the NUM and wider TU movement represented an existential threat to her government and the UK economy. I think the electorate may have agreed with her - if memory serves me right, Thatcher increased her governments majority at the next election.
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No, no the biased right wing press and tv at the time set about alienating the miners. They couldn't afford for the miners to have public sympathy.Its a bit like they do with Corbyn now eg character asassination. The miners were the baddies and no way could the wealthy in this country have their wealth threatened. They actually didnt give a monkeys about the gerneral public. They also decimated the steel industry. We had record levels of unemployment at the time as well but the crap state of the nation was the miners fault! They made sure of winning the battle against the working classes with their strong arm of the law tactics on picket lines not only in the miners strike but also in the steel strike. I was there on the hadfield picket line in case of the steelworkers which was the steelworkers equivalent of Orgreave and witnessed for myself the police brutality.
The problem with the tories is that they pretend that by creating wealth in the nation it will trickle down to the worse off. It never does and never will because of greed at the top. I have told you this lads of times but you choose for it not to sink in to your noggin.
They also cynically created a fake war in the falklands as a vote catching exercise when they were suffering in the polls. Many innocent soldiers lost their lives in this war. Thats all anothe story though...
Last edited by rolymiller; 19-10-2018 at 10:16 AM.
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I think you may be confusing empathy with the constant mouthing of Labour good, Tory bad blather, Roly.
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Another assumption! They never stop. If you scroll up the thread, you will see that I mentioned hearing about The Price of Coal when I was at school in 1977... That probably mean that I lived through the miner's strike...
The press and TV certainly reported the mass picketing and intimidation of people who refused to do what their union told them to do. They also reported the mass picketing and intimidation of people in other industries i.e Orgreave. They also reported the actions of Messrs Hancock and Shankland who dropped a block of concrete onto a taxi taking a working miner to work, killing the driver.
As an authority on empathy, perhaps you could indicate whether you think NUM members should have been given that national ballot that the Union's constitution entitled them to? And how do you feel about NUM members having to take the union to court to stop it misapplying their funds? And how do you feel about working people being exposed to the intimidation of the mass picketing.
Finally where do you stand on empathy for the family of the taxi driver killed by Hancock and Shankland? Perhaps you should have been brought in as an empathy consultant at the pit where they worked; when they were convicted of murder (later reduced to manslaughter on appeal), their colleagues downed tools and walked out.
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Well tell me where the tories show empathy towards ordinary people.I'm all ears...but you can't because their policies are basically all geared up to serving the ruling classes of this country, neigh the world. You criticise Labour but you don't defend the tories because you know you can't. The only reason why May is realed in at the moment is because of her precarious position in parliament. Rest assured she would have been the new Thatcher if she had had a big majority at the last election.We all know how that panned out for ordinary folks dont we?
Last edited by rolymiller; 19-10-2018 at 10:27 AM.
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I see that you pulled back from your assumption that I did not live during the miner's strike. Very sensible.
So you were on the Hadfields pickets. It figures. No empathy for the people who worked there and didn't want a part of your strike. No empathy for the working people who would feel intimidated by the mob that you were a part of.
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I didn't see any mob apart from the police mob. Then again how would you know you weren't there. Its naughty to guess you know.
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