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VIDEO: 'Thatcher won but she didn't kill our spirit' - Pickets' Ball
WHICH side are you on boys, which side are you on?...
The answer to Billy Bragg's song question was in no doubt, as stalwart strikers and supporters reunited to remember times – good and bad – showing that solidarity through adversity is still a motto for our times.
The political singer– songwriter headlined the Pickets' Ball at Worksop's North Notts Arena, as 400 miners, friends and family members looked back over 25 years of laughter and tears.
Worksop was Billy's first port of call in a series of national strike anniversary celebrations.
"Doing gigs is what I used to do during the strike, and it's great to walk into a room and see all these people ready for action," he said.
"It feels just like the old days and it's great to start here."
Old acquaintances were renewed and new friendships forged as guests filtered into the arena, against the backdrop of a screen showing iconic images of the passionate and violent struggle to keep the pits open.
Terry Butkeratis was a key organiser for the event, and said it felt like only yesterday since the bitter feud ended.
"We must think about what we went through 25 years ago and consider the positives – we are still here and things have changed so much," he said.
"Worksop used to be very parochial, but now I think people are starting to realise the world is their oyster."
Partygoers donned their donkey jackets and sported 'Coal not Dole' badges for a bittersweet trip down memory lane.
Pensioner Philip Lee, who began mining at the age of 14 and retired from Shireoaks Colliery shortly after the strike ended, said emotions come flooding back when he thinks of the day the miners went back to work.
"Thatcher licked us, but she didn't lick 'us spirit," he said.
"It wasn't just the pits that were affected, but the steel, brick and timber industries too. It was hard but we all stuck together. The deputies and managers didn't come out with us – we might have done better if they had."
Londoner Ian Wright, friend of Shireoaks' NUM branch secretary George Bell, re-lived the time he was beaten unconscious by police on the picket line during a visit to Maltby Colliery.
He said he still has vivid memories of the attack, and that the police were out of control and 'behaving like wild animals'.
"My head was split open and I needed stitches, but then the police started to attack the first aid people too," he said.
"I was taken to Rotherham General Hospital and it was absolute chaos. The police were arresting anyone there."
He added: "I think the police were being used – they didn't have collar numbers and we know the army was brought in. I still find it very difficult to talk about today."
Journalist Graeme Atkinson was the northern industrial reporter for Communist paper The Morning Star, and travelled from Berlin to Worksop to celebrate a cause to which he is still 'as committed today as back then'.
"I worked for a paper that was committed to the strike, so I had the freedom to move around," he said.
"What the miners said was absolutely correct – it wasn't the NUM but the Conservative Government. The dereliction of industry is still so apparent today."
Rousing music from the Ireland Colliery Band, Clarion Choir, Earwigos, Tiger Sid's Disco and local guitar singer Jim Foy mixed with a series of hard-hitting speeches from key strike players and politicians.
After speakers such as former UNISON leader Rodney Bickerstaffe and NUM president Keith Stanley gave their take, 'Beast of Bolsover' MP Dennis Skinner took to the stage for a 20-minute speech – winning a standing ovation from the audience. He spoke of his regret of the three times when the strikers 'almost cracked it', and said the movement was both agony and ecstasy – leaving a huge legacy in history.
"I looked at the imagery of those workers protesting at the Lincolnshire oil refineries and ask myself, why didn't they do the same in 1984?" he said.
"It was the most honourable dispute in the last century. Mining is part of our DNA – it's the strength that exudes from every pore of every individual in every pit village. You should never believe it was a lost cause."
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Weather for Worksop
Sunday 12 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 3 C to 6 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: North west
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Cloudy
Temperature: 3 C to 8 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
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