Arrested striker: A conviction was devastating to me
Bob Young, from Dunfermline, who went down the pit at 15, watched as hundreds were arrested as they fought for their future.
Young said: “I was lifted because I was a picket line organiser. We had hundreds of pickets trying to stop lorries taking coal from the Cartmore pit at Lochgelly.
“I was the only one prosecuted out of 130 arrested. I was accused of fighting, which I did not do. In court, the Sheriff wasn’t interested in what really happened. But he did listen to the police who were less than truthful. I was fined £75 and got my P45, sacking me, which meant no redundancy and no pension.
“Having a conviction was devastating. I was terrified about the impact on my future ability to get a good job and feed my family. My wife
Rhoda was an auxiliary nurse at the local hospital. We had two young children.
“If it hadn’t been for my wife and family and the rest of the mining community, I don’t know how we would have got through it.
“Luckily for me I had taped discussions with the coal bosses and the National Miners Union eventually got me reinstated following an industrial tribunal. But when they finally closed the Comrie pit, I wasn’t one of the miners transferred on.”
Young, who went on to serve as a Labour councillor for decades, reckons he was lucky. He went to college, eventually opening a training school, helping hundreds of sacked miners into new careers such as driving buses.
He said: “Almost 40 years on, distrust of the police is still there over how they behaved. The anger over what was done to us still festers within communities who lost so much. Many never recovered. I know of several miners who took their own lives.”