The Miner's Strike: Day by Day

By Brian Elliot

Facing probable redundancy in his mid-fifties, South Elmsall miner Arthur Wakefield, fought for jobs and communities throughout the great strike of 1984/85. He also kept a marvellous diary, recording his experiences, impressions and events in considerable detail. The diary is a unique personal day by day account of the most bitter industrial dispute of the 20th century. Armed with nothing more than determination and a camera, he by-passed countless blockades and in the early hours of the morning he would join his colleagues at picket lines at pits, ports, power stations and works in many parts of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Lancashire and the Midlands. He also attended many rallies and marches, and was a regular 'support the miners' collector in London. Arthur Wakefield was a key witness at the 'Battle of Orgreave', on 18 June 1984, which he describes as 'Monday, Bloody Monday', the 100th day of the strike. His descriptions of the 'Battle' contained here in this book have also helped produce an historical live re-enactment to be shown on Channel 4 in April.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 5, 2010
• ISBN: 9781783379026

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Contents

Editor’s Introduction

In 1972 I was in my first year of teaching, at a secondary modern school in the south Yorkshire village where I was born. Monckton, the big local pit, had closed a few years earlier, one of several hundred collieries shut down during the NCB chairman Alfred Robens’ major rundown of the industry – achieved, at least officially, without a strike. For a short spell, in 1947, nationalisation year, Arthur Wakefield worked as a pony driver at the Monckton complex where my grandfather once worked. No doubt my grandfather and Arthur Wakefield’s father, also a miner, would have had bitter memories of the 1926 strike when the men went back to work feeling betrayed, after months of hardship. Deep in the winter of 1972, the National Union of Mineworkers called their first official strike since 1926, defying Edward Heath’s government’s attempt to impose wage restraint. It was during this dispute that Arthur Scargill rose to national prominence, successfully deploying flying pickets at strategic sites such as power stations and, famously, at the Saltley fuel depot, bringing victory to the miners. Little more than two years later, the miners, well supported by other unions, marched back to work victorious yet again, following the fall of the Heath government at the general election of 28 February 1974. The miners’ strikes of the 1970s brought to the attention of even the most naive of politicians that a large and well organised trade union could shatter the most well thought out policies of governments. Under the incoming Labour Government the miners had never been as powerful, negotiating with the NCB a Plan for Coal which meant expansion and development rather than contraction and closures. The new government’s policies fell far short of the more socialist aspirations of the trade unions, especially in public services, during a memorable winter of discontent. The subsequent defeat of the Labour Government led to a situation where the Tories, led by Margaret Thatcher, were determined to revenge the 1974 defeat and make sure that the miners were no longer at the centre of industrial conflict. When announced, the pit closure programme, ostensibly on ‘economic grounds’ had already been predicted by the union. The great strike against pit closures took place in the context of reactionary Employment Acts, implemented to restrict the powers of trade unions. The law on picketing was changed and the courts sequestrated the NUM funds. The strike petered out without a settlement and what followed was predictable: the virtual destruction of our coal mining industry during the late 1980s/early 1990s. In 2002 there are just sixteen deep mines in production in the UK, mostly in the ownership of UK Coal plc.

Veteran Yorkshire miner Arthur Wakefield and many of his friends from South Elmsall and Frickley collieries never missed a day’s picket duty during the twelve months 1984/85 strike. But what made Arthur’s contribution so special was his determination to record his own and his colleagues’ day to day experiences in a diary, for the sake of his grandchildren. Armed with nothing more than a camera, he travelled to pits, ports, works and offices in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire and the Midlands, and campaigned and collected for the NUM and Women’s Support Groups in London. His description and photographs, particularly of the spectacular ‘Bloody Monday’ of 18 June 1984 have been sought after by publishers and the media. The recent re-enactment of the ‘Battle of Orgreave’, facilitated by Artangle for Jeremy Deller’s film documentary and book,¹ is a remarkable achievement, not only as a reminder and faithful account of the original event, but an interesting and new way for us to understand our recent past. But Arthur Wakefield’s diary will also serve as a unique personal and social document of Britain’s most important industrial dispute since 1926, for it is the first detailed day by day on the picket line account of the strike from the pen and camera of a miner.

Brian Elliott,

February, 2002

Arthur Wakefield with two of his diaries, February, 2002. Brian Elliott

Foreword

In 1942, when I left school at the age of fourteen, I knew I was going to work in the coal mine in our village. As I recollect, we did not have a wide choice of jobs in those days. In my early days of work, strikes did not mean a great deal to me but things changed when I became more mature, old enough to work on the coal face and in need of money to support a wife and children. I married Margaret in 1951 and we had six sons, five of whom followed myself into the pit – because they wanted to do so. We weren’t spoiled with the wages that we received and we lived from Friday to Friday (pay-day), most miners with a family to support did the same. There was an occasional strike for one reason or another, often disagreements which were settled in a few days or weeks. Generally speaking the 1950s to late 1960s were happy years. Then came the start of the discontent. The 1972 and 1974 strikes were far more serious affairs, especially the 1974 strike which lasted six weeks and brought down the Tory government of Edward Heath. But when the Conservatives got back into power, with Margaret Thatcher as their leader, she, in particular, was not going to forget that defeat. I believe that Mrs Thatcher wanted to close the pits and bring down the National Union of Mineworkers, causing the Great Strike of 1984-85.

What follows is a day-by-day account of a twelve-month fight to save our pits, our jobs and our communities. Although we went back to work without an agreement, and I was very sad about the outcome, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I dedicate this book to my grandchildren and great grandchildren, and to all miners’ children.

I would like to say a special thanks to Frank Gascoigne for bringing my diary to the attention of Wharncliffe Books. Without his involvement the book might not have been published, and thanks also to my friend and my editor, Brian Elliott.

Arthur Wakefield, South Kirkby, February, 2002. Brian Elliott

I

‘Here We Go…’

Day 4 to Day 50

March-April 1984

I cannot emphasise enough that the Coal Board’s ultimate intention is to wipe out half the South Notts coalfield, cut the Midlands area by forty per cent, close down half of the Scottish pits, cut the North Western Area’s pits by half, close sixty per cent of collieries in the North East, wipe out half of North Derbyshire, seventy per cent of the pits in South Wales and shut down twenty Yorkshire collieries. No one can now say that he has not been warned. Arthur Scargill, quoted in a special issue of The Miner, March, 1984

The Yorkshire Area National Union of Mineworkers’ Headquarters, Barnsley (1994). Brian Elliott

EDITOR’S SUMMARY

ANYONE READING ARTHUR WAKEFIELD’S strike diary will see that, like many of his colleagues, he made himself available for picket duty at every opportunty. Understandably, with Yorkshire ‘solid’ in support of the strike, the priority area was Nottinghamshire, where many miners continued to work. We will also see that he volunteered for strategic picketing at power stations and at key economic sites at or near port locations. The NCB regional administrative centre, Coal House, became a focus of protest with particularly ‘ugly scenes’ reported on 26 March. The early days of the strike, however, were overshadowed by the death at Ollerton, on 14 March, of twenty-four year old David Gareth Jones. David was one of over a hundred pickets from the South Elmsall and South Kirkby areas who were trying to persuade Ollerton men not to go in for the night shift. Arthur was one of an estimated 3,000 mourners who attended David’s funeral on Friday 23 March. Access into Nottinghamshire was often barred by police road blocks. Under reactionary orders, police gave the option to mobile pickets of ‘go home’ or face arrest. So much for public highways. A striking miner was seen as a potential criminal. The police obviously had, by whatever means, prior knowledge of the movement of pickets. But this did not deter Arthur and his mates who gained access via back lanes, footpaths, fields and disused railway lines – and by getting out of bed extremely early. Picketing had to be carefully planned and well organised, though the men tramping over hills, down bankings and through fields were, using Arthur’s words, like ‘Dad’s Army’ compared to the increasingly military appearance and orchestrated conduct of the police. The determined fight for jobs and communities included a great deal of good humour though matters got seriously out of hand on 10 April at what the Sun described as the ‘Battle of Babbington’ during a memorable mass picket. Finally, Arthur describes his first experience of residential hospitality, thanks to the Linfield family, when he was deployed in the Midlands.

THE DIARY

Day 4: Wednesday, 14 March 1984

Our Graham¹ got on the phone and told our Arthur² he had been picketing with his mates from the pit. If he wanted to go he should go the pit³ yard that night. I told Arthur to find out what was going on as regard picketing, and to be careful; and to watch out for our Graham.

Day 5: Thursday, 15 March 1984

9.30 am. Arthur came into my bedroom [and said to me,] ‘Your not going down there, Dad, it’s too rough.’ I asked him where they had been and he told me ‘Nottingham’, to two pits: Ollerton and Thorseby.⁴ It was at Ollerton where a young lad got killed on the picket line.⁵ He had been standing near Arthur who was interviewed [by the police] the same morning, which is why he was late home. After dinner I had a walk down to the Empire,⁶ to catch up with the latest events so far. There were one or two of the lads in who had been on picket duty and they told us that the police had started turning buses back at one of the big roundabouts on the A1, so it was cars from now on. Our [union] branch treasurer, ‘Dickie’ Naylor sat near us and he said that those who were interested in picketing should be up at the pit at 6.45 pm that evening. Ray had a car and gave me a lift. Before I left, at 3.30 pm, I backed the winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Burrough Hill Lad, at 7:2.

When I got home I told our Arthur and Graham that I would be going down to Nottinghamshire on picket duty that night, at about 5.30 pm; but there was a knock at the front door. Margaret [Arthur’s wife] answered it. There were two plain-clothes CID men wanting to question our Arthur about the incident at Ollerton Colliery, wanting him to make a statement, which he eventually did. At 6.30 pm I was about ready to go to the pit. Arthur said, ‘Carry on, Dad, I’ll catch you up’. I got there about 6.50 pm. There was a lot of cars there [all]ready for off but first a union official had a roll call of men that were going on picket and those with cars were given petrol money and instructions, plus a route, which happened to be to a pit called Ellistown.⁷ We set off about 7.20 pm and got there two hours later. It was very quiet, the night shift wasn’t due until 10.30 pm. The police buses were there – about four [of them] but they didn’t all get out. When they saw the amount of pickets, the police took two of the buses somewhere else. The first thing the lads did was to make a fire and get to know where the entrances were to the car park. We were joined by miners from Yorkshire Main⁸ and from South Wales. At around 11.00 pm things were warming up a bit because the cars that did not cross our picket line at the car park entrances were getting in by another way; and the few that did get in (about twenty to seventy men) were waiting in the canteen – and our lads were shouting to them from the causeway to go home. They eventually went back home, in penny numbers[and] as they did so our lads showed their appreciation by clapping. We left about 11.30 pm.

Local and national newspapers ran features on the tragic death of David Gareth Jones. This report is from the front page of the South Elmsall & Hemsworth Times of 16.3.1984.

Moorthorpe Empire Working Men’s Club in 2002. Brian Elliott

A general view of the Miners’ Institute at Moorthorpe in 2002. Brian Elliott

Day 6: Friday, 16 March 1984

It was decided to let the Nottingham miners have their ballot and to see how the ballot went before we resumed picketing.

Day 7: Saturday, 17 March 1984

General meeting at the Miners’ Institute, Moorthorpe; delegate report of what had gone off that week. Two minutes silence for the tragic loss of one our members, David Jones.

Day 8: Sunday, 18 March 1984

Another meeting at the Miners’ Institute to discuss and arrange transport for next week’s picketing and the defence of King Arthur’s Castle in Barnsley.⁹ The officials got a list of sixty cars, twenty for each shift, then sorted the rota out. Graham and myself were on ‘nights’.

Day 9: Monday, 19 March 1984

[At 1.30 pm] Arthur and I went up to Frickley pit to see what had taken place. Stan Grant and Roy Fox were there. We had a talk and while we were there some of the lads arrived who had been on ‘afters’, picketing. They told us that the police wouldn’t let our picket officials speak to blacklegs.¹⁰ We went to the coal tip for a bag of coal, and told them we would be back that night for picketing. That night we called at the Empire for a pint before going on picket at 8.15 pm. They had a roll call but there were only seven cars. We were going to Harworth until Alec Bolton arrived and said ‘Cancel that, we’re going to Bilsthorpe.’¹¹ We left at about 8.35 pm and had no problems when we passed the [police] patrol cars at the various roundabouts and were never bothered by the police. We arrived at about 9.40 pm and parked up on a grass verge at the side of the main road about 200 yards away from the pit lane. At the lane entrance it was swarming with police. There were men from Markham Main¹² and from Goldthorpe.¹³ We formed a line on each side of the lane. There were one or two early comers for work who walked by us and the police, unchallenged. This went on for about half an hour. All we could do was shout at them and try to get their support. I pointed out to the police that this was wrong, that by law it was in order for six official pickets to speak to the workers. Five minutes later they allowed two men to stand in the middle of the road, but twenty yards away from the picket line itself. Some cars stopped but quite a few didn’t want to know and they drove straight through the official picket. The lads were calling them scabs¹⁴ and a lot of other names. The police were also coming out with ‘pit talk’. This went on until 11.00 pm. All who wanted to work did so. The police started to disperse, so did we and left, arriving home at midnight.

Coal picking on South Kirkby Colliery muckstack. Arthur Wakefield (jnr) is holding the riddle, filling the bag and Tony Morrell is on the left of the photograph, holding a spade.

Day 10: Tuesday, 20 March 1984

Meeting again at Miners’ Institute, giving report of Monday’s court proceedings against the NUM and the events that took place in King Arthur’s Castle, Barnsley; also to tell us about Barnsley branch’s talk of adopting new picketing tactics. Was phoned by our branch delegate to report for picketing. We went up at 7.45 pm. It was the same scene, same faces; we got our passengers and petrol money and was told we were going to Bilsthorpe again. We arrived at 9.15 pm. I drove by my mates who were on picket so I could park where they had parked but the police stopped me as I was turning round and asked me where I was going. I told them to join my mates in peaceful picketing. The policeman said ‘Go up there’, which was away from the pit and the pickets. I said ‘I can park up there and join my mates,’ to which he said ‘If you don’t button it I’ll arrest you.’ I asked on what charges but he didn’t reply. I parked my car down an old lane, then we walked about 300 yards back to the picket line [where] we were directed to stand against the fence. There were more police and pickets there than the night before. This was to stop the Notts men from being harassed. There was a bit of shoving, a bit of talking, a bit of laughing and singing and a hell of a lot of shouting ‘scab’. There were no serious incidents. We stayed until all those that wanted to work had gone, and went home at 11.45 pm.

Carved stone figure of a nineteenth century coal-face worker, Miners’ Institute, Moorthorpe. Today (2002), the building still has a community use, including a role as a martial arts centre. Brian Elliott

Day 11: Wednesday, 21 March 1984

Went in Empire Club where you can usually get information on what’s happening. ‘Dickie’ Naylor was in, some other lads [were also there] and there was a reporter from London talking to our delegate, John Stones. Dickie told me he’d ring me later about picketing; he rang about 6.00 pm and said be at the pit at 7.45 pm. At 7.30 pm Tony Murphy came to our house to go with us. We went to Nottingham again, this time to Bevercotes.¹⁵ It was the same as the night before – we couldn’t stop workers and talk to them – they were afraid we might get the message over to some of them that they were being ‘used’. The only difference was the police – they were not as hostile as they were at Bilsthorpe – they were from Merseyside. We stayed until 11.00 pm, then came home, but first calling at the Frickley picket fire; and while we were there some lads brought a box full of sandwiches left from a wedding reception; we arrived home at 12.30 am.

Day 12: Thursday, 22 March 1984

Received some very encouraging news – Lancashire are joining the strike against pit closures. On Monday their union stated it was there to keep the peace. Went down to the Empire Club, feeling good about the news. The first man I saw was Greg Whitehurst, singing his head off – he was so pleased! I sat at the table with Dickie Naylor, Charlie Bossoms and Terry Carter. A bit later Greg says to me ‘Let’s have a song, Wakey’ so I sang, If your happy and you know it clap your hands, and also, In Barefoot Days. I now waited for picket duty – at Ollerton [Notts]. We arrived at 9.10 pm, had some time to spare so we called for a pint at a pub called The Jolly Roger. We came out to go on the picket line at about 9.40 pm. I was in the front of our Arthur, Tony Murphy and Martin Jones. I crossed the road about twenty yards before reaching a pub called The Plough. Arthur joined me with ‘Java’ Fox, Tony Murphy and Martin Jones. When we reached the picket there were two or three policemen coming towards us on the causeway; they brushed by me on my left-hand side. Arthur was on my right. All he was concerned about was me; he put his left arm around my shoulder to pull me against him in a protective way. The next thing I saw was a policemen arresting him. I asked them what was going on as he hadn’t done anything and said ‘Let him go, it’s my son.’ They arrested him, thinking he was assaulting me and said they were taking him to Nottingham. Martin Jones (our union rep) put in a report of the incident to our strike headquarters.

When it was cleared up I went back on picket line to the same colliery that one of the lads [David Jones] was killed on and the atmosphere was very tense. There were local people standing across the road and the police encouraged them. However, they did shift some of them later after we had complained. It was pretty much the same as the other night – none of the cars would stop. The difference was there was a much larger number of them. A policeman who had complained of being struck, stood facing me on the picket line. He was trying to provoke me but I wasn’t biting. We exchanged a few words, then I sang On Ilkla moor bah’t tat. Later on another lad was arrested; it was Mick Howell, a local lad. By this time it was about all over for the day and the lads had had enough. We talked to a union man of ours and he told us they had taken those that had been arrested to the police station in Mansfield, so Dickie Naylor, our union representative, suggested that Java went back home with Bob Primer to make room for Dickie in our car. We intended to go to Mansfield. Dickie gave Tony directions and we arrived in Mansfield at 11.20 pm.

We went to the police station. Dickie did all the talking [and] did all right. He made enquiries about Arthur and Mick but they had not arrived yet from Ollerton. He made enquiries as to where we might get something to eat and they told us of a takeaway. While we were looking for it, Dickie was searching for a telephone so as to let someone know about Mick. However, a ‘Black Maria’ passed us and went into the police station yard, so we looked over but couldn’t see who came out of it. We carried on looking for the takeaway but we heard a voice. It was a plain-clothes man from the station. He told us that Arthur and Mick had arrived. We asked if we could see them but he said one of you can have a couple of minutes with him, so it was decided that Dickie should see them. When he came back he told us that they would be appearing at the magistrates court in the morning at ten and that they would be represented. Well, there was nothing else we could do, so we looked for the takeaway and used a telephone. The takeaway was closed, so we set off home. On the way we called at the Blue Star for a meal and arrived home after midnight. Whilst at the Blue Star we saw some lads from Brodsworth¹⁶ who had been picketing and they asked us about the funeral. Most men intended still going picketing after the funeral and they were asking if they could attend in the clothes that they were picketing in. We said it was up to the individual. We didn’t get home until 1.30 am.

Day 13: Friday, 23 March 1984

Meeting at the Miners’ Institute, 10.00 am. No one said much except to give us arrangements for the funeral. We were taking our banner and asked for twelve volunteers to carry it. The response was overwhelming. We were to assemble at South Kirkby cricket field at about 2.15 pm. There was a report from Frickley that the manager, Mr Clay, was allowing the lads to get a bit of unwashed coal from the stack, but someone wasn’t satisfied with that and was getting it from near the plant and damaged a vending machine. Meanwhile, I enquired about Arthur and Mick and was told that they were being