Tears, fears and a numbing shock that will take decades to overcome

WHEN Tata steel announced 270 job losses at Motherwell and Cambuslang yesterday, I knew exactly how all those people felt.

It is more than two decades since I felt a hand on my shoulder and was given the devastating news that they were closing down Clyde Alloy, in Lanarkshire, just a couple of miles from Ravenscraig.

I had worked there for 28 years – more than half my life after starting at 21 and serving an apprenticeship as a welder. Just like that, the company had gone into administration.

There were always concerns about the future of the plant but it still came as a complete shock. I can never forget the feeling of being told we were no longer wanted.

We were frogmarched out of the building without the chance even to empty our lockers as they feared we would be destructive, such was the sense of anger and disbelief. Because the company had gone into administration we did not receive a penny in redundancy.

I did get a government handout of between £3,000 and £4,000 but as my youngest son was just starting university, it went straight into his bank account to help him through.

So I know how those young workers at the Dalzell and Clydebridge plants must feel.

A lot of them will have partners and children. They will have mortgages and must be wondering how they will be pay them.

They will have started apprenticeships – they must be supported and helped to continue their training.

The Scottish Government will talk about retraining them for other jobs. In nine out of ten cases those other jobs do not exist. I believe Scottish steel can still provide those young men and women with a living.

Ravenscraig closed shortly after Clyde Alloy and the impact on the community was devastating. Dalzell and Clydebridge cannot be allowed to go the same way.

We need to maintain the steel industry and there’s one thing we have today that we didn’t have in 1992 – a Scottish parliament.

The Scottish Government has intervened in the past to save jobs at Prestwick Airport, Ferguson Shipbuilders and Grangemouth refinery – it should act again to save our steel industry.

And if all else fails, the industry should be brought back into public ownership.

In 1992, the effects of closure were dramatic, for me and everyone else. This dark cloud descended on the area and the people, and the effects are still being felt. We still have high dependency and benefits; there’s still a lot of unemployment.

Ministers must not be frightened of subsidising people’s wages in the short-term because that is better than seeing a whole community out of work. Steel has made a big contribution, not only to Lanarkshire but the whole of Scotland. The entire country should back steelworkers.

I was fortunate. I was already a councillor and went on to become an MSP.

But I still see former workmates who have not had a job since that day – and not for want of trying. That must not be the fate of the 270 workers facing desperate uncertainty in Motherwell and Cambuslang.