Post by Bazza on Nov 28, 2006 5:41:42 GMT -5
Did anyone else see this tv program last night? It wasn't just about the strike but the whole coal industry. For those that missed it here is an article taken from the Mirror newspaper yesterday.
DISAPPEARING BRITAIN: WHEN COAL WAS KING
The closure of most of Britain's coal mines in the 1980s devastated hard-working communities across the country.
At least 250,000 jobs were destroyed, the cause of an untold number of financial and personal tragedies for families whose husbands and sons had worked down the pits.
Because the job was a dangerous experience - from which some men never came back - there was widespread public support for the miners' strike of 1984-85.
Ricky Tomlinson was so angered by the assault on the miners - including a horseback charge by police at Orgreave colliery in June 1984 - that he joined their picket lines.
Best known as Jim Royle in the BBC comedy, The Royle Family, Tomlinson, 67, was once a plasterer who was heavily involved in the trade union movement. In 1972 he was sentenced to two years in prison for his involvement in a builders' strike in Shrewsbury.
Tomlinson believes the role of the Thatcher government in the miners' strike was corrupt and unjustifiable.
In a bid to come to terms with this, he filmed a documentary on the subject which airs tonight.
Here he tells ANTONIA HOYLE why, two decades on, it's a subject that still fills him with sadness and anger.
'THIS film is one of the saddest things I've ever worked on. It's moved me to tears, researching it, travelling to former mining communities all over Britain, to see how the industry and its closure affected the residents.
Mining was such a dangerous job that no one ever went to work without resolving an argument in case they didn't return.
In one village I went to in South Wales, 439 workers were killed in one day, in the 1913 Senghenydd colliery disaster in Glamorgan. On one single day nine or 10 people were taken from every household. How could their families ever get over that?
Revisiting people who'd lost parents and grandparents, I felt so proud of how well they coped. But also very very angry.
So many of those tragic deaths could have been avoided.
Take the Aberfan disaster in 1966. The authorities knew there was a stream under the mine that made it dangerous to work in, yet they carried on letting people work there.
One hundred and forty-four people died needlessly. It was a whitewash and we should all be ashamed.
But in some ways it's not so different now. It's like the recent rail disasters - no one gets prosecuted and those who've been maimed or lost loved ones have to fight like bloody hell to get compensation. And there are ways in which the treatment of miners was actually worse than the threat of terrorism today.
With terrorism you don't know where or when it's going to strike so it's very difficult to do anything about it.
But with the coal industry they knew the dangers these men were under.
That's not to say it justifies their closure. Thatcher was lying when she said there was no demand for coal any more.
One of the villages I visited proved that. The workers from Tower Colliery in Hirwaun, Rhondda, took out a bank loan and ploughed their redundancy money into buying their mine when it was closed down in 1994. It now runs successfully - and safely.
Britain still has 250 million tonnes of the best deep-mine coal in the world. Someone somewhere is making a lot of money from importing it.
We've now got even better technology that can reduce the environmental damage that mining caused.
And if oil dried up tomorrow then, mark my words, they'd find a way to open up the coal mines.
WHAT'S happening in Iraq is horrible. Our army shouldn't be there. As Prime Minister, Tony Blair is inflicting pain on other people, which is dreadful.
But what Thatcher did as Prime Minister and Michael Heseltine did as Trade Secretary was inflict pain on their own people. It was about economics and money, not personal suffering.
When Thatcher dies in a few years time she won't need to worry about coal, because where she's going it will be bloody roasting. I know I'll have a pint and celebrate with a group of miners.
It was solidarity from them that helped me through my stint in prison.
They had a fund to make sure my kids didn't go hungry, and they even paid for them to come and visit me.
There was no one more supportive. That's why I joined the picket lines with my Brookside co-star Sue Johnston during the miners' strikes.
I didn't care what the bosses said - this was my business. Now and again you have to stand up and be counted.
I can't believe we don't do more to remember the miners.
The way the pits have been grassed over it's as if we want to forget we ever had a coal industry.
It's a disgrace. There should be a National Coal Day at the very least.
DISAPPEARING BRITAIN: WHEN COAL WAS KING
The closure of most of Britain's coal mines in the 1980s devastated hard-working communities across the country.
At least 250,000 jobs were destroyed, the cause of an untold number of financial and personal tragedies for families whose husbands and sons had worked down the pits.
Because the job was a dangerous experience - from which some men never came back - there was widespread public support for the miners' strike of 1984-85.
Ricky Tomlinson was so angered by the assault on the miners - including a horseback charge by police at Orgreave colliery in June 1984 - that he joined their picket lines.
Best known as Jim Royle in the BBC comedy, The Royle Family, Tomlinson, 67, was once a plasterer who was heavily involved in the trade union movement. In 1972 he was sentenced to two years in prison for his involvement in a builders' strike in Shrewsbury.
Tomlinson believes the role of the Thatcher government in the miners' strike was corrupt and unjustifiable.
In a bid to come to terms with this, he filmed a documentary on the subject which airs tonight.
Here he tells ANTONIA HOYLE why, two decades on, it's a subject that still fills him with sadness and anger.
'THIS film is one of the saddest things I've ever worked on. It's moved me to tears, researching it, travelling to former mining communities all over Britain, to see how the industry and its closure affected the residents.
Mining was such a dangerous job that no one ever went to work without resolving an argument in case they didn't return.
In one village I went to in South Wales, 439 workers were killed in one day, in the 1913 Senghenydd colliery disaster in Glamorgan. On one single day nine or 10 people were taken from every household. How could their families ever get over that?
Revisiting people who'd lost parents and grandparents, I felt so proud of how well they coped. But also very very angry.
So many of those tragic deaths could have been avoided.
Take the Aberfan disaster in 1966. The authorities knew there was a stream under the mine that made it dangerous to work in, yet they carried on letting people work there.
One hundred and forty-four people died needlessly. It was a whitewash and we should all be ashamed.
But in some ways it's not so different now. It's like the recent rail disasters - no one gets prosecuted and those who've been maimed or lost loved ones have to fight like bloody hell to get compensation. And there are ways in which the treatment of miners was actually worse than the threat of terrorism today.
With terrorism you don't know where or when it's going to strike so it's very difficult to do anything about it.
But with the coal industry they knew the dangers these men were under.
That's not to say it justifies their closure. Thatcher was lying when she said there was no demand for coal any more.
One of the villages I visited proved that. The workers from Tower Colliery in Hirwaun, Rhondda, took out a bank loan and ploughed their redundancy money into buying their mine when it was closed down in 1994. It now runs successfully - and safely.
Britain still has 250 million tonnes of the best deep-mine coal in the world. Someone somewhere is making a lot of money from importing it.
We've now got even better technology that can reduce the environmental damage that mining caused.
And if oil dried up tomorrow then, mark my words, they'd find a way to open up the coal mines.
WHAT'S happening in Iraq is horrible. Our army shouldn't be there. As Prime Minister, Tony Blair is inflicting pain on other people, which is dreadful.
But what Thatcher did as Prime Minister and Michael Heseltine did as Trade Secretary was inflict pain on their own people. It was about economics and money, not personal suffering.
When Thatcher dies in a few years time she won't need to worry about coal, because where she's going it will be bloody roasting. I know I'll have a pint and celebrate with a group of miners.
It was solidarity from them that helped me through my stint in prison.
They had a fund to make sure my kids didn't go hungry, and they even paid for them to come and visit me.
There was no one more supportive. That's why I joined the picket lines with my Brookside co-star Sue Johnston during the miners' strikes.
I didn't care what the bosses said - this was my business. Now and again you have to stand up and be counted.
I can't believe we don't do more to remember the miners.
The way the pits have been grassed over it's as if we want to forget we ever had a coal industry.
It's a disgrace. There should be a National Coal Day at the very least.
