Published: Wednesday, 7th March, 2007 12:17
READY FOR A BATTLE - THE MINERS STRIKE PART TWO
By Cumnock Chronicle Newsroom
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Friday March 9, 1984 unleashed the most turbulent, bitter and controversial labour dispute the area had seen since the war.
Miner turned against miner, friend against friend, and neighbour against neighbour. And when the 3,000 Ayrshire miners began the fight to save their livelihoods, they had no idea that they were about to embark on a year-long brutal struggle that would irrevocably change their lives for ever.
“We knew it was coming! Thatcher had been planning this for while!” recalled Bert Smith, former Killoch miner and Treasurer of the Ayrshire Branch of the NUM. “It was deliberate that things came to a head in March. Thatcher had been stock-piling coal for quite some time in preparation for this and we were moving into the better weather. She was ready for a battle.”
By the beginning of the first week, 24 strike centres were set up all over Ayrshire. Community centres became the organisational hub of the action as strike activities were co-ordinated from them and the branch office in Ayr.
Bert Smith continued: “The men were solid. There were rumours that there was one or two sneaking back in. They knew it was going to be a long strike and the vast majority realised that if they didn’t fight they would be very vulnerable.
“There were pickets all over the area, but Hunterston Power Station was a real issue for us and we had to show support. We hired a load of buses and got everyone there that we could.
“It was rough. The first day wasn’t too bad. The police were trying to have a laugh and a joke with the miners.
“But by the second day this had all changed. They were on horseback looking like medieval warriors with riot shields and large batons and there was no joking.
“The windows on some of the lorries were smashed and the bus company refused to give us buses again.”
The ban on bus hire didn’t weaken local miners’ solidarity. They travelled all over the country standing their ground on some of the fiercest pickets with worst scenes of violence ever recorded.
Local men returned from Orgrieve Coking Plant in Yorkshire battered and bruised; ribs were broken and flesh torn by barbed wire as they were chased by mounted police. One man at the time said: “I have never been so frightened in my life.”
In Cumnock and Doon Valley, pickets were ongoing at Killoch, Barony as well as Knockshinnoch and Waterside preparation sites.
A 16 man sit-in was staged in one of the surface buildings in Killoch and then councillor Jean Allan joined in.
One month in, miners were confident they were on their way to victory, a feeling deeply echoed by Scottish mining leader Mick McGahey as he stood before 600 people in Cumnock Town Hall and declared: “We can win our fight.”
The STUC’s Day of Action in May saw thousands of people march through the streets of Cumnock in the biggest rally this area had ever seen. Factory workers at Fenners, Falmers, Cumnock Knitwear and Kingsmead Carpets all came out in support of the miners.
In response the NCB took out full page advertisements in local papers “to keep the record straight - NCB’s side of the story” and continued to deny the closure plans. They claimed that it was the miners who were bringing the communities to their knees by preventing vital coal supplies from going to the needy.
The miners countered that domestic supplies, and those going to the elderly, schools and hospitals were never obstructed.
The picketing men themselves went into the hills to dig coal for their vulnerable neighbours.
They chopped wood donated by a company in Straiton and delivered it to the old folks to keep their fires burning.
But in the face of the allegations, the mood amongst the battling miners turned dark. Talks between the NUMB and the NCB broke down and the strike took on a life of its own.
There was a slow drift of workers back to the pits, pickets intensified, arrests were made and 22 local men were sacked.
Bert, from Netherthird, was one of those men. He recalled: “There was a big picket in New Cumnock housing scheme; big police presence. Some of us got on a bus to try and persuade an older man not to go back to work. Six got on the bus along with eight police officers including an Inspector. There was no intimidation, no threats, just talking. and when we got to the pit we got off the bus. Three were recognised and sacked: I was one of them.
“The pickets continued. More and more were going back to work and we had miners waving their paylines at us out of the buses as they went into pit, and I heard stories of police officers antagonising the miners by waving £5 notes at them. It was a hard time.”
Over twenty years later Bert, who started off his mining career in 1958 in Kirkconnel, before moving to Cumnock in 1966, was still fighting for justice along with many of the sacked miners in Scotland.
Many were given their jobs back after the strike, but men like Bert, who had been heavily involved in the union were not extended that privilege - despite a police inspector testifying in his favour at the industrial tribunal.
As the year crept on, more men went back to work and the cracks in the campaign were all the more evident.
Some were lured back by the NCB under promises of high bonuses and generous redundancy packages. The pressure of families living on a mere £15 a week was taking its toll and older miners found the fight too hard and went back to work.
At this time a New Cumnock man gave a defiant interview to the Chronicle. His house became a new site for picketing, his car was overturned and his windows put in regularly.
BUT HE VOWED THIS WOULDN’T CHANGE HIS DECISION TO BREAK THE PICKET. HE SAID “I DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE WAY THE STRIKE WAS CALLED OR THE BALLOT AND I WILL CONTINUE TO WORK.”
Article first appeared in the Cumnock Chronicle Friday 19th March 2004
