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Music: Police and Striking Miners
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Music: Police and Striking Miners |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: Nigel Parsons Date: 06 Jan 09 - 12:28 PM Oh, and that was 100 |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: richd Date: 06 Jan 09 - 03:16 PM One thing that does interest me greatly is why there was seemingly relativly little music generated through the strike, and what there was doesn't seem to have lasted. I only realy have direct knowledge of s Wales, and I can't think of many songs of the time- if anyone else does I would be glad to be wrong, Dave Burns excepted. I did spent some time in the Durham Coalfield just before the strike, and there seemed to be little enough there too. I would like to be wrong, but it didn't seem that there was little new created by the experience of the strike and the lead up to it. There were lots of poems, but not much music, although there was a fashion for whistling 'The Cuckoo Waltz' when the police turned up. I'm trying to remember what went on at a lot of the events I went to- mostly speeches I think. Even the buses and coaches were pretty quiet and grim. I wonder in what conditions the songs of the American Coalfields were created in, and how they were achieved, remarkable as they are. I will ask around about this. |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: Millindale Date: 06 Jan 09 - 03:42 PM I would, before posting anything on a forum, check out the truth of what I was saying. I have heard the story of Scargills 'mansion' ad nauseum apart from the mention of his son. I am not sure that he even has a son. He has a daughter who was a GP in my home town of Penistone. |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: Nigel Parsons Date: 06 Jan 09 - 07:41 PM And news today The Times seems to show the NUM profitting from compensation payments which should have been going to ex-miners! plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: theleveller Date: 07 Jan 09 - 03:47 AM "I have heard the story of Scargills 'mansion' ad nauseum" So that makes it untrue, does it? One thing I can tell you for certain is that, during the strike, Scargill regularly ate in the expensive Brooklands restaurant near Barnsley. I saw him there myself on two occasions. Another thing that I know for certain is that, at the same time, kids were going hungry around where I lived. Much as I hate Thatcher and what she did, Scargill was an arch hypocrite who let the miners down. |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: GUEST,Ian Date: 07 Jan 09 - 04:03 AM Thank you. When I put my earlier post up, I appeared to be a lone voice. Now, the thread has a more balanced set of views. It is not possible to say this side were fully in the right and that side were fully in the wrong. The government had a two fold plan; destroy the power of the trade unions, as they were too aligned to the labour party and too powerful. Question the long term viability of coal fired power. I was bemused to see the labour party sat on the fence for most of the time, relying on Benn, Skinner and other deniable assets to carry the flag whilst relishing the thought of not being dictated to by the unions in the long term. So... what did this all achieve? New Labour! Congratulations to Messrs Scargill, McGaghy etc for being the founding fathers of the alternative to a conservative government... wait for it... a different conservative government! Not that the police are happy with them either..... |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: The Borchester Echo Date: 07 Jan 09 - 04:05 AM Arthur Scargill was an elected union official who was paid to enact NUM policies. If that salary enabled him to buy property and eat occasionally at restaurants, that's exactly what most people do with their earnings. I don't know either if he gave his son a house or even if he has one but I certainly met his daughter at a World Youth Festival and a more committed socialist it would be impossible to encounter. Leveller, you'd be more logical if you castigated disgraceful Thatcher government policies that denied the right of miners to live in the same way as those still in employment. |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: Jim Carroll Date: 07 Jan 09 - 04:17 AM "Leveller, you'd be more logical if you castigated disgraceful Thatcher government policies " You should know by now it doesn't work like that Countess. Those who chose to support Thatcher and to believe the press at the time still do - the defence of the mining communities only gets in the way of the argument, and it's always easier to discuss where Arthur buys his butties. It's interesting to see how her tearing the country in half still persists. Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: GUEST,Ian Date: 07 Jan 09 - 07:33 AM "It's interesting to see how her tearing the country in half still persists." - Jim Carroll For me, I would never give the credit for still affecting anything. Both political parties had hitherto produced papers questioning the long term viability of coal. The difference was that she did not believe in communities and the bonds that hold them together. I would have laughed to hear the tory politicians moaning about destroying communities and wider effects when this present government abolished fox hunting. However, irony is wasted on most of the politicians I know and have to deal with these days. Yes, Scargill was duly elected. I voted for the other guy, Bell I think his name was, but accept that he won the national leadership ballot so called him my leader. I only wish he represented us, that's all. I only wish he had the talent and wit to achieve the aims of the union. I only wish he didn't use trade unionism as a springboard for regime change at Westminster. I only wish the rest of the country saw the struggle as a plea to keep jobs, save communities and for 20,000 people to carry on doing what they did best, feed the energy demand for the rest of the country. They couldn't whilst both sides rattled on about class struggle, political might and win / lose. You knew it had all gotten out of hand when the Prime Minister of your country, the person who vows to represent you refers to you as the enemy within, on the basis of what you do for a living... Now there's a thought. |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: theleveller Date: 07 Jan 09 - 09:44 AM "Leveller, you'd be more logical if you castigated disgraceful Thatcher government policies that denied the right of miners to live in the same way as those still in employment" That goes without saying. |
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Subject: Just to set the records straight. From: GUEST,Sallie Oughton a miners daughter from South Date: 09 Feb 09 - 11:55 PM David Wilkie the Welsh taxi driver was killed November the 30th 1984.He was killed by two striking miners Dean Hancock and Russell Shankland Wilkies fare was David Williams a scab who worked at the Merthyn Vale mine.They were accompanied by two police cars and a motorcycle outrider.The two striking miners dropped a 46 pound concrete block from ther bridge 27 feet over the road.Wilkie was killed instantly , Williams was slightly hurt. Hancock and Shankland were found guilty of murder and sentanced to life imprisonment.Am appeal of conviction were reduced to manslaughter replaced by 8 years jail sentance. |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: GUEST,Ian Gill Date: 31 May 10 - 05:30 AM I still reckon the '84 strike was the biggest political turning point of the last fifty years in the U.K. If the TUC had supported the NUM when they called for a General Strike the Thatcher government would probably have fallen and the rest of the decade - and U.K. history - might have been very different. |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: Bonzo3legs Date: 31 May 10 - 05:35 AM Thank goodness they didn't. |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: GUEST,Essex girl Date: 31 May 10 - 06:28 AM A Song written by Mundy-Turner (Markham Main) after evening with a person who had a relative commit suicide sums up the miners strike for me. |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: Fred McCormick Date: 31 May 10 - 03:04 PM Bonzo3legs. Did you actually live through the Thatcher era? I did and I can tell you all about the destruction which the Tories wrought, not just on the miners, but on everybody else who got in their way. That bloody woman deserves to burn in hell. |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: Stringsinger Date: 31 May 10 - 04:39 PM Jim, I think that was Napoleon. " If I could write the country's songs, I care not who writes the country's laws", for sure a bad paraphrase. Archie Green's book "Only a Miner" is one of the best index into the history of US striking coal miner's songs. Uncle Dave's "Buddy, Won't You Roll Down That Line" is a history lesson of itself. There was this song from Southern Illinois that Alan Lomax railed after saying it was a fraud. It was published in an Illinois newspaper I think in the 20's. It's an anti-union coal mine song. "Come and listen to my song, story of a nation wrong, Idle men in a roving band strike the tools from a miner's hands. Chorus: Flag of blue, white and red, a man's got a right to earn his bread. Flag of blue, white and red, a man's got a right to earn his bread. Tried to work 'cause I'm almost broke, to dig for Donnegan's Coal and Coke. A hundred miners came around and beat me bloody to the ground. Chorus: John L's pay is big and fat, I wish I had a tenth of that. I don't like to sit at home and hear the wife and children moan. Chorus: |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: Leadfingers Date: 31 May 10 - 07:11 PM The saddest outcome of the '84 Miners Strike was the almost total emasculation of the UK Trade Union movement . Sadly , the PROPERLY run Unions were screwed along with the idiots ! When a Trade Union works convener can call 'The Brothers' out on a wildcat strike with NO meeting or ballot THAT union needs sorting out . However the Blessed Margaret managed to include all unions in the melee , wether they were well run or not . |
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Subject: RE: Music: Police and Striking Miners From: Bonzo3legs Date: 01 Jun 10 - 03:54 PM Bonzo3legs. Did you actually live through the Thatcher era? I did and I can tell you all about the destruction which the Tories wrought, not just on the miners, but on everybody else who got in their way. That bloody woman deserves to burn in hell. Of course, I was far too busy enjoying myself to worry about a few nutters in trades unions.
Sorry for the inconvenience. -Joe Offer- |
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