The Miners' Strike, 1984-85

March 6, 1984, the miners ‘strike began. The miners were discontented with the bad working conditions and the low wages and couldn’t come to an agreement with the Conservative Government lead by Maraght Thatcher. That was why the NUM president, Arthur Scargill, 12th of March called out for a strike to all the 200.000 miners nationwide. About 187.000 decided to join the strike, while the reaming 13.000 continued their work in the pits.

But, Thatcher had foreseen the strike, so as a preparation she made sure to stockpile enormous amounts of coal at the power stations around the country. So, the miners had to wait several months before they came close to closing down the country’s energy supply.

The ones who still worked at the pits were looked down. They went under the name, scabs, which meant that they were against the majority of the striking miners. There were big fights between the scabs and the working miners, who also got the nick name “flying pickets”. The flying pickets started to threaten the scab’s families, and sometimes they even burned down the scabs’ houses.

The strike dragged on, so the rest of the population started to get sympathy for the striking miners, because they had been without any real income for six mounts. They stared to make donations and soup kitchens, witch a lot of family’s had to rely on. A lot of miners sold everything that could be made into money.