‘Miners were the backbone of the nation and the Government threw them on the scrapheap’
Today marks 40 years since the beginning of the 19841985 miners’ strike, a dispute that changed the face of coalfield communities throughout Britain forever. To mark this important anniversary, the Post has been examining the impact of the coal industry’s demise on our county and how its legacy is being preserved. Now we hear from the miners and their families who lived through that difficult time. OLIVER PRIDMORE reports
THE impact of the coal mining industry’s collapse on Nottinghamshire stretches into almost all areas of everyday life, but one issue in particular makes Mick Newton long for the sense of community the pits provided.
“Mining communities didn’t need a policing presence. Mining communities were self-policing,” he said.
“Anti-social behaviour just didn’t exist then. If somebody’s kid did something, their dad would find out about it in the miners’ welfare and go and sort it out. A lot of people will think that anti-social behaviour is now here to stay, but back then there were no issues because of that social fabric.”
Mr Newton, now 60 and living in Daybrook, was the last in a long line of pit workers in his family and had only recently joined the industry at Thoresby Colliery when the strike was called.
Speaking about his early days in the pits, Mr Newton said: “Throughout 1979 and the early ’80s, it was all about mass unemployment and jobs were few and far to come by.
“Steelworks were closing down, a lot of traditional industries were being sacrificed off the back of socalled economics. It was a very, very insecure period, so when I went down the pit I was ecstatic because I thought I was in a job for life.
“I was in support of the strike and it wasn’t just about my job, it was about the people I worked with, their families and the coal communities. All of that left us with no option.”
Mr Newton’s support for the strike remained strong throughout the dispute, often having to rely on family and friends to eat. Although support was given out to striking miners by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM),
Mr Newton says: “We were in the unusual position of being the minority in Nottinghamshire, so we didn’t get the same kind of support that other areas did. We were supported by the union but the financial support was very little. It was very piecemeal.” That “unusual” position in Nottinghamshire is why the county ended up being the centre of much of the unrest during the 1984-85 strike. Speaking about the time is also incredibly difficult for those who took the decision to continue working. Two former Bilsthorpe Colliery miners who worked through the strike were willing to speak on the condition that their names would not be used. Speaking about the ongoing impact of the strike, one said: “There’s still a lot of broken families, brothers not speaking to brothers, fathers not speaking to sons.” One of the former miners recalled seeing 1,000 pickets at the entrance to Bilsthorpe Colliery one evening during the strike, around an hour before he was due to start his night shift. He said: “My wife had my dinner on the table and I said ‘I can’t eat that, I feel sick.’”
Despite the animosity of the period, when asked about the atmosphere at the end of the strike when all miners returned, one of the former Bilsthorpe miners said: “Bilsthorpe was a friendly place and we didn’t hold grudges. We just went back to work.”
Asked if they felt particularly hard done by when the collieries closed, given that they had worked during the strike, one of the ex-miners added: “We couldn’t think about it like that. We had families to bring up.”
Decades may now have passed since the strike, but Mick Newton says it is a period which still lives with all those involved.
“A lot of people suffer with PTSD. It’s not just limited to soldiers – a lot
If you’ve been fighting for something for a year and you lose, that has an impact on you mentally and physically
Mick Newton
of miners that went through that strike suffer with it.
“If you’ve been fighting for something for a year and you lose, that has an impact on you mentally and physically”, Mr Newton said.
Having become a Labour councillor in Nottinghamshire in later life, Mr Newton has long campaigned for reforms to an area which also continues to have a detrimental effect on the lives of ex-miners – their pensions. “Miners are still fighting for their existence”, Mr Newton said.
Issues surrounding the pension pot arose after it was privatised in 1994, with the Government establishing a 50/50 surplus arrangement with the mineworkers.
Miners were told that no more than £2 billion was needed to help shore up the pot for the future but, to date, successive governments have received over £4 billion in cash payments. A parliamentary committee recommended that the Government should relinquish billions and return money to the miners, describing the 50/50 arrangement as “unconscionable”.
Responding to the committee in 2021, the Government said it would not agree to its recommendations, something described at the time as a “slap in the face” for pension scheme members. Mr Newton remains hopeful that change is coming, but said the pension scheme row is just one facet of the poor manner in which miners have been treated since the closure of their collieries.
He added: “During the strike, Thatcher coined the phrase that we were the ‘enemy within,’ a statement that was both untrue and very offensive. Mineworkers were by and large very patriotic.
“They were meeting the needs of the nation, they were the backbone of the nation.
“They powered the industrial revolution and two world wars and the Government threw them on the scrapheap.”