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In Mining Ruins Left By Thatcher, New Economy Struggles


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HOLA441
Guest eight

Good post, my mother is from a 'mining community' and they have always been the same.

When their was plenty of work at the pit the complaint was that they had no other choice of work than down t'pit.

If every pit had been subsidised to this day by the tax payer and kept open for them, they would still be complaining before, during, and everafter about their lot.

Along with this is their unshakeable pride about being a miner, fine, but this seemed to not balance with the fact that every lad in my class was being told by his miner dad to get a trade in engineering or construction and never to follow them.

In that case I must relate this. I used to work with a very nice Moroccan chap who had just recently arrived here. This was around the same time that Ellington Colliery was in its dying throes, a process which the incredibly parochial BBC Look North took great delight in updating us on every night. One day this guy took me to one side and asked me, quite sheepishly, why there was so much fuss about the mine closing. I told him that it was good well paid work, and traditional for the area, and that there wasn't much alternative around. He then told me that he had recently been to Beamish, and been down the mine, and found it awful, and stated what a relief it would be to know that you would never have to go underground again. With the innocence of fresh eyes, he thought the miners should have been have been celebrating!

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HOLA443

The mines would all have closed under a Labour government. It would have made no difference if Thatcher had never existed.

Scargill was a grand standing Yorkshire twit that quite frankly gave them the excuse they were looking for. They should organise some "death parties" for him, when he goes.

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HOLA444

The mines would all have closed under a Labour government. It would have made no difference if Thatcher had never existed.

Scargill was a grand standing Yorkshire twit that quite frankly gave them the excuse they were looking for. They should organise some "death parties" for him, when he goes.

Not everybody in the mining areas thought he was the bees knees.

I remember seing graffitti under a flyover near Pontypridd during the strike,

It said 'Support Scargill'

under a drawing of a man hanging from a gallows

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HOLA445
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HOLA447

The real problem was having entire areas totally reliant on one industry and one industry alone.

What happened after that and who made those decisions - just a sideshow.

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HOLA448

Theyve had over 20 years! Pre housing bubble as well, they've had much better opportunities than the young, plenty of whom are at least doing something instead of whining. It's a victim mentality, they've no pride or gumption, and i have no sympathy.

Your town suddenly goes from 4% unemployment to 25% in 1 year. Everywhere else around you is economically depressed, and most of the country is too. Your in your mid-30's and all you've ever done from when you were 18 is work in a mine. How easy do you think it is to find re-employment in such a scenario?

Time passes. You end up on incapacity benefit, that the job center *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink* steers you toward. You've been on it for 3-4 years now, making your entrance back into productive employment difficult even under the best of economic circumstances. But the economy certainly isnt in the best of shape, unemployment remains high, being above 8% for nigh on the next 17 years. How easy do you think it is for such a person to enter productive employment?

Yes with all this some will make it, and some did. But its not at all surprising that many many people fell through the cracks.

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HOLA449

Yes with all this some will make it, and some did. But its not at all surprising that many many people fell through the cracks.

The weak and useless were left behind. I'm merely pointing out they were weak and useless. With a 20 year window those that remain gave up at some point, and I do not sympathise as their situation today is of their own making. We all have things to deal with in our lives, all of us, thatcher is a convenient excuse for laziness for these people.

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HOLA4410

Your town suddenly goes from 4% unemployment to 25% in 1 year. Everywhere else around you is economically depressed, and most of the country is too. Your in your mid-30's and all you've ever done from when you were 18 is work in a mine. How easy do you think it is to find re-employment in such a scenario?

Time passes. You end up on incapacity benefit, that the job center *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink* steers you toward. You've been on it for 3-4 years now, making your entrance back into productive employment difficult even under the best of economic circumstances. But the economy certainly isnt in the best of shape, unemployment remains high, being above 8% for nigh on the next 17 years. How easy do you think it is for such a person to enter productive employment?

Yes with all this some will make it, and some did. But its not at all surprising that many many people fell through the cracks.

Why didn't Labour have a plan to deal with them when they got power in 1997.

Why didn't their Labour councils do something for them? Councils were flush with money between 97 and 2007.

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HOLA4411

Not everybody in the mining areas thought he was the bees knees.

I remember seing graffitti under a flyover near Pontypridd during the strike,

It said 'Support Scargill'

under a drawing of a man hanging from a gallows

My dad was on strike for 10 months during the '84 strike. He disliked Scargill before the strike, and loathed him after it, as did many NUM members in the Yorks coalfield.

The deep mines were on the way out anyway by the late 1980s - the pits were getting deeper and deeper as the good seams, such as the Barnsley seam, were mined out at shallower depths. They were mining coal nearly 1km below the surface by the 80s/90s. It was the availability of cheap North Sea gas that enabled Heseltine's 'dash for gas' that led to the closure of many coal fired power stations (it wasn't thatcher that stuck the final knife in - it was Tarzan).

That said, I felt like vomitting at the politicians and press pundits of the 1990s who sneeringly referred to 'rust belts' and 'metal bashing' industries that were old hat as far as they were concerned - financial services, IT and other misc services were the coming wave. Those stupid Germans kept bashing that metal though, didn't listen to our canny politicians and economists. I remember Sir John Harvey Jones lamenting on TV in the 90s that the Thatcher 'revolution' of the 1980s almost certainly cost the UK many viable companies and industries, as well as finishing off those companies that were grossly inefficient.

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HOLA4412

As it is almost 30 years since the mineworkers strike, surely many of the original miners would have naturally retired (died!) by now?

Did they get big redundancy payments when t'pits shut and when did their pensions become payable (generally for privatised industries this was 50).

For many, was there ever any real incentive to find further work?

Trouble is a father idling around the house (even if he can afford it) can have a negative effect on his own children's aspirations leading to an endemic benefits culture.

Also, there seems to be a vast industry of ambulance chasers associated with the coal mining industry, what compensations have been paid out?

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HOLA4413

The lack of compassion here is shocking

These men fought to keep their jobs. Not just any job, not even a GOOD job, but a dirty and dangerous job, the only one they knew how to do. Think about it, they fought to keep a job that most of us would not have lasted 5 minutes doing: digging out coal in the pitch dark, hundreds of metres underground day after grinding day. To them it was their whole life. That was the limit of their aspirations : work hard at a hellish job to put food on the table for their families.

They are working men, is it any wonder then that many of them could not move on and ‘retrain’ into the new spiv economy ?

And anyway what is the problem with miners? Surely there are more deserving targets to focus your hatred upon ?

Some of you can be right orrible cants.

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HOLA4414

These men fought to keep their jobs. Not just any job, not even a GOOD job, but a dirty and dangerous job, the only one they knew how to do. Think about it, they fought to keep a job that most of us would not have lasted 5 minutes doing: digging out coal in the pitch dark, hundreds of metres underground day after grinding day. To them it was their whole life. That was the limit of their aspirations : work hard at a hellish job to put food on the table for their families.

The miners were just pawns in a game being played by the likes of Scargill.

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HOLA4415
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HOLA4417

The lack of compassion here is shocking

Indeed. I'm amazed to see anyone still supports the miners who had no compunction about plunging the rest of the country into darkness in order to make a few quid.

These men fought to keep their jobs.

Jobs paid from the taxes of workers on far less money who were having to sit at home in the dark because the miners were on strike again so there was no power. They were massively overpaid by the standards of the time to produce coal that was far more expensive than from other sources.

They are working men, is it any wonder then that many of them could not move on and ‘retrain’ into the new spiv economy ?

You'd think some of them could have taken their fat redundancy cheques and not blown them on fancy cars or other short-term perks. Like, say, bulding a new busiess instead of blaming Thather for the rest of their lives.

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HOLA4418

As it is almost 30 years since the mineworkers strike, surely many of the original miners would have naturally retired (died!) by now?

Did they get big redundancy payments when t'pits shut and when did their pensions become payable (generally for privatised industries this was 50).

For many, was there ever any real incentive to find further work?

Trouble is a father idling around the house (even if he can afford it) can have a negative effect on his own children's aspirations leading to an endemic benefits culture.

Also, there seems to be a vast industry of ambulance chasers associated with the coal mining industry, what compensations have been paid out?

Their retirement age was 65, same as for everyone else. Working miners tended to move from underground work to a pit surface job if their health prevented them from working underground, e.g. in their 50s. When the pits shut they got maybe £10k - 30k redundancy (depending on years service) and went on the dole, ordinary pit moggies mostly had to wait until 65 to draw their full pension, although I do know a retired pit manager who retired in his mid 50s on a pretty good pension, albeit after almost 40 years service.

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HOLA4419

The weak and useless were left behind. I'm merely pointing out they were weak and useless. With a 20 year window those that remain gave up at some point, and I do not sympathise as their situation today is of their own making. We all have things to deal with in our lives, all of us, thatcher is a convenient excuse for laziness for these people.

What a shockingly ignorant, unpleasant view.

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HOLA4420

As it is almost 30 years since the mineworkers strike, surely many of the original miners would have naturally retired (died!) by now?

Did they get big redundancy payments when t'pits shut and when did their pensions become payable (generally for privatised industries this was 50).

For many, was there ever any real incentive to find further work?

Trouble is a father idling around the house (even if he can afford it) can have a negative effect on his own children's aspirations leading to an endemic benefits culture.

Also, there seems to be a vast industry of ambulance chasers associated with the coal mining industry, what compensations have been paid out?

I lived near to a mining area and from memory the redundancy packages were of the order of 20K-30K plus early pension packages, which you can treble for today's money or about six times for house purchasing power.

Most of the older miners were pretty much spent by the time they were 50, and I knew many who were on lifetime disabilty benefits as well.

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HOLA4421
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HOLA4422

Theres a huge amount of rubbish floating around this subject, the truth is that they got a good payout, and anyone over 50 didn't even bother to go for another job. My dad described the scheme where they had a room full of ex miners being told how to write a CV by a young women in her twenties while they all sat around and cracked jokes. Eventually the DWP told them not to bother turning up any more.

A few years later when the compo money starting flowing the union (thats the UDM not NUM) sent out guides on all the symptoms to everyone before the assessment, I remember the discussions in the miners welfare about who got the biggest payout.

For the younger people many had good skills, people like electricians could walk into a job no problem, for others at the time EU money was flowing and every light industrial estate for miles has an EU flag on its board, so jobs were not a problem.

All you see on the TV is the people who couldn't be bothered, with local and regional councils who couldn't be bothered, who sat on their **** and blamed someone else.

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HOLA4423

The lack of compassion here is shocking

These men fought to keep their jobs. Not just any job, not even a GOOD job, but a dirty and dangerous job, the only one they knew how to do. Think about it, they fought to keep a job that most of us would not have lasted 5 minutes doing: digging out coal in the pitch dark, hundreds of metres underground day after grinding day.

So are these fragile little flowers that need our understanding or big burly muscle bound men righteously digging with their fingernails for the good of humanity? Your view is a little inconsistent.

I believe the fighting was more about class warfare and being easily manipulated than really really wanting to carry on doing a lousy job.

These are grown men, they should be able to stand on their own 2 feet over 20 years from losing a job ffs, there's a point you cross with too much compassion called being taken for a fool.

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HOLA4424

So are these fragile little flowers that need our understanding or big burly muscle bound men righteously digging with their fingernails for the good of humanity? Your view is a little inconsistent.

I believe the fighting was more about class warfare and being easily manipulated than really really wanting to carry on doing a lousy job.

These are grown men, they should be able to stand on their own 2 feet over 20 years from losing a job ffs, there's a point you cross with too much compassion called being taken for a fool.

Were they weak and useless while they were working down the pit? At what point did they become weak and useless? Was it immediately after redundancy? A year later? Two years?

Depression and anxiety can hit even the strongest. It is no respecter of class, status, wealth or even mental fitness. There but for the grace of God...

Your lack of empathy is frankly chilling.

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HOLA4425

I don't get why people think they were justified in mooching off of everybody else, which is what they were doing. What about compassion for the poor taxpayer? It's not like miners were poor. Many taxpayers were and are poor.

When their mooching was challenged their response was to turn the lights out and try and get people to pay up Mafia style. When coal was imported as an alternative their response was for the comrades to blockade the ports. Bear in mind that while they tried it against Thatcher in the mid 80s and lost, they tried it against Thatcher in the early 80s and won - and before that Callaghan. And Heath.

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