Hundreds arrested in a single day
In his book“polmaise: The Fight for a Pit”former Polmaise NUM delegate John Mccormack describes a number of instances of miners from the local area being arrested at pickets across the country.
Mr Mccormack, who passed away earlier this year, said in the book, co-authored with Simon Pirani: “Polmaise, like every other pit, had our share of arrests on pickets.the fact was that, on picket lines such as these, the police had to lift their quota of men.
“The police in Central region were not the worst we came across. I was asked by the regional council once for any complaints we had about them and there were none. The Fife police, and the Lothians police in particular, were a different story.
“My brother James was among the 65 miners lifted at Hunterston. He was flung into jail and kept there for ten hours, and ended up being fined £150 for breach of
the peace. His‘crime’was that he was standing there, when the horses charged, and was knocked down.
“On the day after that, we were all arrested trying to get to Hunterston, in the biggest mass round-up in the miners’strike.
“We were going through Stepps, in Glasgow, with six bus-loads of men – nearly 300 of us all together. A single police car came along, with an inspector in it. He stopped the first bus and asked where we were going. I was in charge of that bus, and I said, ‘we’re going to Largs for the day, for a picnic’. But of course he didn’t take any notice.
“We all got out and sat on the road. Police reinforcements were called, and they shoved us all back on the buses.”
“They took us all to different police stations around Glasgow, took our names, and charged a total of 292 of us.”