10th April 2013, 06:03 PM
I was far too young at the time to really understand what was going on.....so yeah I may be mis-illusioned of what happened before.
My father was,however, in the thick of it. He was a fireman, from a mining community, his famiily were all from either the mining industry or ship building industries. He was a labour supporter and a socialist.
He, didn't support the strikes, he didn't support labour during the battle, and lamented the poor decisions made by the unions.
From his long and boring stories, in his opinion, the state-run industries were ineffecient dinosaurs that needed modernisation. The union leaders were power-hungry madmen only interested in bringing the country to its knees.
The only thing I remember (living in the north-east) was that during some unrest at a picket line some supporters of the miners dropped some concrete off a bridge onto a vehicle trying to get through their lines to do his job and killed him.
The impression I get from talking to people in the mining communities up here is that all they were interested in was keeping their own pit open and everyone to keep their job no matter what. I feel they didn't see or care about any bigger picture.
Some people in the unions took advantage of this for their own political agenda, trying to blackmail the government and bring the country to it knees.......maybe in an attempt to change our country into a communist state?
The government called their bluff.
All hell broke loose.
The unions lost.
Order was returned eventually.
We are all still here.
Things got better.
I could have got the whole thing wrong, my perspective could be entirely skewed.....but maybe other peoples perspective is also skewed.
Besides in my opinion its very rude to 'celebrate' someones death, be it Osama bin laden, Margaret Thatcher, Neil Kinnock or Hitler.
I wonder how a protest outside of the 'party' planned by the Durham Miners would go down. Would they celebrate this as people rightly demonstrating...or would it turn nasty.....?
Remember, power corrupts, ultimate power corrupts ultimately.
Did the unions have too much power?
My father was,however, in the thick of it. He was a fireman, from a mining community, his famiily were all from either the mining industry or ship building industries. He was a labour supporter and a socialist.
He, didn't support the strikes, he didn't support labour during the battle, and lamented the poor decisions made by the unions.
From his long and boring stories, in his opinion, the state-run industries were ineffecient dinosaurs that needed modernisation. The union leaders were power-hungry madmen only interested in bringing the country to its knees.
The only thing I remember (living in the north-east) was that during some unrest at a picket line some supporters of the miners dropped some concrete off a bridge onto a vehicle trying to get through their lines to do his job and killed him.
The impression I get from talking to people in the mining communities up here is that all they were interested in was keeping their own pit open and everyone to keep their job no matter what. I feel they didn't see or care about any bigger picture.
Some people in the unions took advantage of this for their own political agenda, trying to blackmail the government and bring the country to it knees.......maybe in an attempt to change our country into a communist state?
The government called their bluff.
All hell broke loose.
The unions lost.
Order was returned eventually.
We are all still here.
Things got better.
I could have got the whole thing wrong, my perspective could be entirely skewed.....but maybe other peoples perspective is also skewed.
Besides in my opinion its very rude to 'celebrate' someones death, be it Osama bin laden, Margaret Thatcher, Neil Kinnock or Hitler.
I wonder how a protest outside of the 'party' planned by the Durham Miners would go down. Would they celebrate this as people rightly demonstrating...or would it turn nasty.....?
Remember, power corrupts, ultimate power corrupts ultimately.
Did the unions have too much power?