# In Support of Comrades



## BondandBigM (Apr 4, 2007)

Although I've lived here for years and it's only a quick run up the road I had never been to a gala day. It seems that these days it's more of a p!ss up than anything else which is a bit of a shame. The boozers were just gouging people, name a price, double it then add a bit so eventually after getting ripped off in several pubs we just went to the offy bought a few tins and stood in the street with the boys (and girls)

Never the less it still brought home Thatchers ruthlessness when she dealt with miners and their families and there are still places and people in the surrounding area that have never recovered.

A few snaps of what turned out to be a good day out and we saw Maradonna in Yates's but that's a whole other story all together.

:biggrin:


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## Nigelp (Jan 28, 2015)

Thatcher destroyed this country and the industrial force it once was, a nasty person, having got that off my chest...nice pics :yes:


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## BondandBigM (Apr 4, 2007)

Nigelp said:


> Thatcher destroyed this country and the industrial force it once was, a nasty person, having got that off my chest...nice pics :yes:


Yep forget the monetary cost, that was a drop in the ocean compared to what the Old Witch left in her wake


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## AbingtonLad (Sep 8, 2008)

A cursory glance at what Norway did with its North Sea oil windfall... and what we did with ours... will tell you all you need to know about Mrs T and her cohorts.


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## kevkojak (May 14, 2009)

Seems to be a trend with upsetting people today, so I will continue. :biggrin:

Sorry to play devils advocate, but those mines were closed because they were unprofitable. Ignore that the workers were chasing above-inflation pay rises in a recession, this was a government owned/subsidised industry which was totally untenable. If there was money in it (any money at all) then eery single one of those pits would all have been bought out and privatised - which they weren't in most cases.
Privatisation or mechanisation were the only two potential rescue plans, and both would have meant mass lay-offs anyway.

I'm not Thatchers biggest fan by any means, but in the case of the coal mines I think she made a very unpopular decision which needed to be made to save us a few billion quid.

Imagine if she hadn't done it - who would have; John Major? Tony Blair? Cameron??? Don't make me laugh, we'd still be funding them now and the economy would be even further in the poo.

The few remaining coal mines (only one deep-coal pit left now) are constantly fighting bankruptcy, UK Coal have already bailed them out several times.


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## chris l (Aug 5, 2005)

https://www.edfenergy.com/energyfuture/energy-gap-security/coal-and-the-energy-gap-security


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## badgersdad (May 16, 2014)

Look at the steelworks - privatised where they could turn a profit, closed where they couldn't. The pits needed addressing, but doing it with dogs, horses and batons and with no plan for the future of those communities probably wasn't the right way to do it. I've got family in Grimethorpe and it's still reeling today.


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## BondandBigM (Apr 4, 2007)

badgersdad said:


> but doing it with dogs, horses and batons


Rather ironically our ranks were infiltrated, well our minibus anyway, by a reasonably senior Plod. I think he's chief something or other these days but he wasn't saying much on the bus there and back. Some people that were out and about have long memories about what went on back in the day so he kept a low profile and never wore his hat.

:biggrin:

It was mildly amusing that a few Beat Bobbies on patrol knew who he was and came over to speak to him, the natural assumption from some of the crowd around us was that he was being "Spoken To" and possibly about to be nicked when he was actually their Boss.

:laugh: :laugh:


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## DJH584 (Apr 10, 2013)

> It was mildly amusing that a few Beat Bobbies on patrol knew who he was and came over to speak to him, the natural assumption from some of the crowd around us was that he was being "Spoken To" and possibly about to be nicked when he was actually their Boss.


Or he was a retired police officer of high rank, had retained his uniform and was in fact imitating a police officer?
Once you retire, you don' t retain the authority the rank of office gives you.

David


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## BondandBigM (Apr 4, 2007)

DJH584 said:


> > It was mildly amusing that a few Beat Bobbies on patrol knew who he was and came over to speak to him, the natural assumption from some of the crowd around us was that he was being "Spoken To" and possibly about to be nicked when he was actually their Boss.
> 
> 
> Or he was a retired police officer of high rank, had retained his uniform and was in fact imitating a police officer?
> ...


 Nope he still catches bad guys now and then for a living but he was hardly going to get on a Pub Bus for a day out in his uniform, especially to a miners reunion.

:laugh: :laugh:

As an asides there was, as you would expect these days when there are some top political types around for the speeches, a heavy police presence. At one point I got lost and was trying to find a boozer where some of the boys were and as you do I asked a Policeman, well actually a couple only to find out they weren't locals and didn't know where it was, one profusely apologizing saying they had been brought in for the day. Eventually a wee local PCSO girl sent me in the right direction.

:smile:


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## ProperTidy (Mar 10, 2014)

Btw, the pits were only 'unprofitable' because from '79 onwards the govt engineered the unprofitability. The miners gave the Tories a bloody nose a few years before, '84 was revenge. Places like Big Pit stayed profitable for decades afterwards

Working underground was tough though. Not that I know, I sit at a desk and match my shoes and belt, but my home town was a mining town. Weren't you supposed to be safer serving during ww2 than staying down the pits as a 'protected' worker? Used to see lots of older blokes covered in blue lines where the coal dust got in, looked like [email protected] prison tattoos at first glance. Imagine wanting above inflation pay rises for doing one of the toughest, filthiest and most dangerous jobs going, cheeky beggars 

Still, wretched job or not at least it was a job... Closed the mines and left the towns to rot. Not like Merthyr and Barnsley are economic powerhouses these days is it. My dad had lots of mates, proud fellas who'd worked since school in proper skilled jobs, mining or at the steelworks, respected, reasonably well paid, didn't work for years after if at all. Few started their own businesses and stuff and did well, fair play to them, few topped themselves as well. Who wants some bloke on the wrong side of 40 with a wealth of skills for jobs that don't exist any more and not a lot else. The town is still highly skilled but poorly paid, thirty years on from the pits closing and twenty five years since the steelworks went, and lots of towns in the coalfields suffered a lot more, in Yorkshire and the NE and the S Wales valleys particularly

All history now anyway I suppose. That old bag had no saving graces though, simple as. Everything that happened would have happened anyway I reckon but maybe not as brutally as it did.

As for unprofitable industries that only survive on grants and subsidies and what not... Wonder when the Tories are going to take on agriculture? Flying pickets from the NFU, red flags flying from the back of tractors... :biggrin:


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## Nigelp (Jan 28, 2015)

ProperTidy said:


> Btw, the pits were only 'unprofitable' because from '79 onwards the govt engineered the unprofitability. The miners gave the Tories a bloody nose a few years before, '84 was revenge. Places like Big Pit stayed profitable for decades afterwards
> 
> Working underground was tough though. Not that I know, I sit at a desk and match my shoes and belt, but my home town was a mining town. Weren't you supposed to be safer serving during ww2 than staying down the pits as a 'protected' worker? Used to see lots of older blokes covered in blue lines where the coal dust got in, looked like [email protected] prison tattoos at first glance. Imagine wanting above inflation pay rises for doing one of the toughest, filthiest and most dangerous jobs going, cheeky beggars
> 
> ...


Well said.


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## scottswatches (Sep 22, 2009)

regardless of how it badly managed, the unions did need breaking up.

How much better are the bin services now they are privatised? Perfect example of how smaller private firms can improve over government run organisations. The problems with cola and steel was entire towns were not given any plan B when the dominant employer was closed


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## BondandBigM (Apr 4, 2007)

scottswatches said:


> How much better are the bin services now they are privatised? Perfect example of how smaller private firms can improve over government run organisations.


Seriously ???

Emptied every two week's and if it's not exactly on the spot left for another two weeks, binmen going that quick that if they tip a bin over while running after the lorry, which literally never stops rolling, they just leave it where it falls. Then you have the Bin Nazi going round checking our bins and treating you like a criminal should you get something mixed up and in the wrong bin. There is also talk of going to three weekly collections so unless you live in a Palace and have Jeeves and some staff to attend to them you are going to have stinky bins in your front garden for even longer. And as I live in an over 55's area there are plenty of the older residents a bit confused and unfirm but hey ho don't put your bin out properly and the Bin Nazi is giving them a big red ticket with threat of lock up or at the very least a fine if you don't comply.

Yep much better

:biggrin:


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## scottswatches (Sep 22, 2009)

BondandBigM said:


> scottswatches said:
> 
> 
> > How much better are the bin services now they are privatised? Perfect example of how smaller private firms can improve over government run organisations.
> ...


We clearly have better binmen than you artytime: . At least your's are not on strike like most of the seventies


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## ProperTidy (Mar 10, 2014)

Not sure bins are great example... Used to take my rubbish every week and come to my door, now it's every fortnight and if the wheelie bin isn't exactly where it should be they won't take it

Trains are worse... Postal service getting worse... Only truly successful privatisation I can think of is BT, dozens of examples of where it's been bad. Look what's happening to NHS!

Unions were created to stop employers and govt exploiting workers. Unions got us the weekend, the 40 hour working week, child labour laws etc. God bless 'em I say!


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## BondandBigM (Apr 4, 2007)

scottswatches said:


> BondandBigM said:
> 
> 
> > scottswatches said:
> ...


Have you had a wander around any reasonable sized UK town recently, rubbish strewn everywhere, fly tipping all over the place. And this idea of most of the 70's is nonsense, just out of curiosity of coarse are you old enough to have lived it ??


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## scottswatches (Sep 22, 2009)

I was young but I remember the three day week, endless strikes and the miners strike. And every piece of crap that came out of British Leyland. As a young and impressionable youth you might see what I saw, but to be fair I didn't experience life before strikes when no doubt some people needed to group together to get decent conditions. But I do think it went too far.


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## BondandBigM (Apr 4, 2007)

scottswatches said:


> I was young but I remember the three day week, endless strikes and the miners strike. And every piece of crap that came out of British Leyland. As a young and impressionable youth you might see what I saw, but to be fair I didn't experience life before strikes when no doubt some people needed to group together to get decent conditions. But I do think it went too far.


I was a kid in the 60's and working in about 74/75. Back then we lived in a damp old tenement room and kitchen literally, we had the room and my mother and father slept in the living room, no hot water or bathroom and gas lights on the stair. My father grafted 6 days a week as a labourer in an old iron works for a pittance then went to his part time job on a night just to make ends meet, driven into the ground, he was dead at 50 and my grandfather coughed his lungs out after years at the coal face at not much older.

as for the comment about BL, nearly all motors of that era were no better even some of the top end stuff were unreliable rusty buckets it was just the technology of those years, just that these days the new tory boy Wail readers are happy to quote them, the miners and the like. Most ordinary working class people just wanted to make a few quid and get on with there lives in reasonably comfort but just weren't paid enough to do even that so I had and still have a bit of sympathy with those that felt then and now their only option was and is to withdraw their labour.

I can't help thinking we are heading slowly back to those bad old days those that have a few quid don't give a toss about those that are less fortunate.

Time will tell.

:smile:


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## ProperTidy (Mar 10, 2014)

Pretty much how I feel, that. Withdrawing labour is the only thing a lot of people have to improve their lot... Making strikes basically illegal is going to have some nasty consequences I think. We'll see anyway.


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## Nigelp (Jan 28, 2015)

A lot of (P)political brain washing went on in the 80's that the 70's were all bad etc etc. A lot of my age group now in their forties bought into the propaganda. From what I can see the majority of the country is worse off than it was. Certainly the country as a whole can afford less the UK is a shadow of its former self in World Affairs. All because we lost our industrial back bone...staple industries like mining are part of a countries back bone


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## mexico75 (Aug 21, 2014)

Where was this Bond?


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## ProperTidy (Mar 10, 2014)

I'm not Bond, but Durham. Durham Miners Gala, they have it every year, quite a big doo I think


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## mexico75 (Aug 21, 2014)

Ah wasn't sure what coal field we were talking about.


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## BondandBigM (Apr 4, 2007)

Yes it was in Durham, reported in the news that there was some 150,000 people turned up. Even if there is northing on it's a good day out.



















:smile:


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## Caller. (Dec 8, 2013)

Nigelp said:


> A lot of (P)political brain washing went on in the 80's that the 70's were all bad etc etc. A lot of my age group now in their forties bought into the propaganda. From what I can see the majority of the country is worse off than it was. Certainly the country as a whole can afford less the UK is a shadow of its former self in World Affairs. All because we lost our industrial back bone...staple industries like mining are part of a countries back bone


I don't buy into political brainwashing. I hate all this talk of the man in the street not being able to understand or following like sheep. I grew up in the 70's, left school, started work etc and I too remember the strikes, the power cuts, the rubbish piling up everywhere and being burnt ands 'rat hunting', my old man being made redundant from the gasworks (wasn't a lot of fuss made about that, but then, it was in London, under Labour, so didn't really count), having a girlfriend from 'Cov' whose old man worked for BL, when they weren't on strike that is, otherwise he was doing very nicely with his own upholstery business. Mind you, he came in handy when I needed a new engine for my Triumph 1300!

I thought then it's best to move on, it might have been the making of my group of friends.


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