Authority and Change in the Coalfields

Abstract

Miners who went on strike in 1984 were clear about one thing. They knew that McGregor was out to close collieries and that only industrial action would prevent 'hit list' from taking rapid effect. For many of them experience of 1972 and 1974 was an important one. To those who had gone through it, 1972 dispute seemed to represent a turning point in history of union and coal industry. In densely concentrated mining communities of North of England, South Wales and Scotland that strike had become firmly established in popular memory. Then, people will tell you, the old men said we couldn't win; that no strike could win in coal industry. They all remembered 1926 you see. But we did win. In 1984 there were fewer harbingers of doom, instead there was a grimness, a sense of having 'our backs to wall'. 'It's now or never'; 'it's them or us'; 'it's a fight to death'. These were phrases repeated in those early days. It became apparent, quite quickly, that grimness reflected a reality 1984 dispute was to be very different from anything that had gone before.