Twenty years after the miners' strike began, Beverley Addy finds bitterness still bubbles close to the surface among those who were at the coal face of the dispute. ***********
A miner at the end of his shift.
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Two decades on and one might have expected wounds to have healed and passions faded over the year-long miners' strike of the 1980s. In the region's once thriving mining communities, though, no-one's talking about the Hutton Report or Iraq. In Northumberland, all it takes to get the hackles rising again is a 20th anniversary celebration of the miners' strike which started on March 12, 1984, and ended a year later - 19 years ago today - on March 5, 1985. Tomorrow, 600 ex-miners and their families will descend on Ashington Leisure Centre for a knees-up promising to be the best party for two decades, according to the NUM organisers - but it will be strictly "no scabs allowed." They may be partying now, but the reason feelings run so deep is that as miners across the country marched back into work behind their union banners, there was no victory to celebrate. A dark veil was still drawn across the future of the British coal industry and there was a justified conviction that the strike had failed to dent Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's determination to close huge numbers of pits. Within 10 years just a token presence of deep mines remained. Miners' reminiscences are filled with anger and bitterness. There are barely even dregs of forgiveness and understanding for those who, crushed and broken by a year out of work, trailed back to the collieries weeks before the end of the strike. With hindsight, even the most positive can only measure a couple of ounces of success to balance the weight of misery the long fight brought. Pit closures being dragged out over a decade and enhanced redundancy payments were small gains for a debilitating battle. Even so, there are very few regrets from a generation of miners that were politicised by a strike that some feared might bring down the Government of the day, and others dubbed Thatcher's stand to break the unions. John Dunn worked at Lynemouth Pit during the strike. He's out of work now due to ill health. Like his two fellow Wansbeck councillors - both ex-miners too - the strike cemented a political streak within him and set him on the path to public office. At the time of the strike he'd barely got his feet wet in union office, having just being elected to help look after finances at the NUM's Lynemouth branch. John, then 27, still lives in Ashington. He was married to his now ex-wife, Susan. She was 26 at the time and they had a two-year-old son Paul. "I think personally, the first time I ever questioned the fact that we were having problems was about October. By that time I had changed. I had accepted I was in a political war. It sounds crazy. I was reasonably educated at secondary school, no great shakes. But my best education was 12 months on strike. "Everything I had been brought up to think as a 1950s child, like respect your country, society, the empire, that had all gone. I saw the whole force of the British society come down on the working people, DSS, police, the courts. "It was a terrible time for a lot of people. Homes were broken, friendships lost. It was never glamorous. I took no delight in seeing friendships that were lost and the animosities that are still here today. "It was difficult to rebuild. But I don't regret it. The pressure was enormous. I'm fully aware some people went back to work because they were absolutely smashed and perhaps they couldn't see any other way out. "But I didn't like the way it was done. People driving buses wrapped up in cloths looking like Yasser Arafat so you couldn't see who they were, and the bus windows with meshing on. It is surprising how the animosity has risen again as the anniversary's got near." As the political battles wheeled to and fro, the miners' families were battling on the home front simply for survival. "I suppose we got by. We were in a better financial position than some people," John recalls. "We wouldn't have survived without our families. For months and months, we never had to buy groceries. A lot of people didn't have that support." John and his family had just bought a new home as the strike started. "Susan never once suggested going back. My oldest son was only two at the time. He would stand on guard when me and his mum were pinching coal. He cannot really remember, although he went on loads of rallies. "We were fortunate in our family. Only once did a relative say, `Don't you think he should be back at work?' They never said it again, though. We didn't get divorced until after the strike but I do think it put a lot of pressure on us and our relationship." On the political front, John says the waters were muddied by the strong characters at the top. It became Arthur Scargill versus Margaret Thatcher, and on the ground, the pickets versus police. At times the real debate got buried. John adds: "It was one of the busiest times of my life. I was working 12 hours a day, even though I was on strike, for the union. I was often followed. I had my car at the time kicked in by police. "I work very closely with the police now as a councillor. You cannot live in a democratic society without them. But I saw some horrendous things. During the night the police would go round and book the lads who couldn't afford to tax their cars. There was restriction of movement, and whilst I couldn't prove it, there were rumours of phones being tapped. And I went to jail for the first time in my life." He was on a rally in London when he claims a fellow miner was attacked by police and he went to help. "I was arrested and put in jail. I had to go to court in London on three occasions and the union could not fund the travel any longer, so I had to plead. I was given a jail sentence suspended for a year." John pleaded guilty to obstructing a police officer. Many miners were charged with breach of the peace or similar crimes. Those who were found guilty were usually fined and banned from the picket lines. "We went through a time when there were more lads barred from the pickets than there were picketing. I did come across some good policemen during the dispute. At my colliery we had local police. Some had families down the pits. There was a rapport built up. "But when there was something really nasty to be done, invariably the police were from other areas. Lots of lads left the force afterwards. The trust had gone in the police. They were put under enormous strain. You could see scores getting settled afterwards, even in simple things like football matches." The first clashes in the North-East happened in March 1984 when 24 miners were arrested at Ashington as pickets tried to halt coal supplies reaching Blyth power station. More than 400 miners were involved in violent clashes outside the Inkerman site in Tow Law, County Durham, with 15 arrested. Other violent scenes took place at Philadelphia, near Houghton-le-Spring, Wearmouth Colliery in Sunderland, Bates Colliery, in Blyth, and the Northumberland pits of Whittle, Ellington, Lynemouth and Dinnington. More than 600 North-East miners were arrested during the strike, and dozens of complaints were lodged against the police. As the strike threatened to go over the festive period, John says the pit bosses offered tempting inducements, £100 Christmas boxes and coal immediately. "They picked on the weakest people. Targeted them. Phoned them up. Oh, the violence it caused! What happened at the workshop for two days after people went back, the violence was unbelievable. Ours was the only committee of all NUM branches in Northumberland that didn't have someone go back before the end. "When the strike ended it was at boiling point. The management saw themselves as having won the dispute. We were told we were the guilty ones. I saw lads who had stuck the strike out wound up by lads who had gone back and we had to plead with them not to respond - the management had made it clear what would happen to anyone who did cause trouble. "I imagine the majority of those who went back felt bad. But there were the ones who went back and collaborated with the bosses. I could never forgive that. "Some of my more bitter memories are afterwards. How they used the victory to batter people to the bottom and how communities were wrecked. "A lot of miners became very politicised. I don't think it will be appreciated until we are dead and gone. I think then it will be seen as the last great industrial battle." Page 2: Paving the way | 
