Strike

Jonny Owen reaches the end of his highly personal exploration of the strike and finds out what happened afterwards. Saddled with debt after a year with no wages, mining families now face the closure of their pits and the end of a whole way of life. Jonny asks whether the NUM was doomed to lose from the very beginning. He sifts through the arguments about the lack of a national ballot being the union’s Achilles heel, and about the role Arthur Scargill played in it all. And he hears more about how Margaret Thatcher’s confrontation with the miners shaped life in Britain today. Presenter: Jonny Owen Series Producer: Clare Hudson Executive Producer: Steve Austins Assistant Producer: Ffion Clarke Development Producer: Branwen Davies Sound Designer: Meic Parry Sound Editor: Adam Whalley Composer: Richard Llewellyn Series Consultant: Dr Ben Curtis Strike is a Bengo Media Production for BBC Sounds

As the miners and their families celebrate Christmas, desperation is setting in. South Wales NUM leaders are seeing some of their members close to cracking up, and they fear the union will collapse if the drift back to work continues across the British coalfields. They are now barely on speaking terms with their national president, and they begin to manoeuvre behind the scenes to get an organised return to work. They have the moral authority to do that – even in mid-February, 97% of South Wales miners are still on strike. Nowhere else comes close, not even Yorkshire. George Rees, South Wales NUM secretary said later that some of the other smaller English coalfields who still advocated staying out "were willing to fight to the last drop of South Wales' blood". But some of the South Wales women who have put so much into the NUM’s struggle want to carry on and are furious at the leadership for what they see as caving in. The men go back after voting on a motion proposed by South Wales in early March. Across the coalfield, it’s a bittersweet moment, which is marked in many communities with bands playing and flags flying. In their heart of hearts they know they are beaten, but having fought the good fight means something to many of them. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Peter Walker urges his Conservative cabinet colleagues not to gloat, a plea which falls on deaf ears in some quarters. Prime Minister Thatcher gets a frosty response from South Wales Police to her invitation to a drinks party to celebrate the end of the strike. And Coal Board South Wales boss Philip Weekes is in a dark mood about the future of the industry. Presenter: Jonny Owen Series Producer: Clare Hudson Executive Producer: Steve Austins Assistant Producer: Ffion Clarke Development Producer: Branwen Davies Sound Designer: Meic Parry Sound Editor: Adam Whalley Composer: Richard Llewellyn Series Consultant: Dr Ben Curtis Strike is a Bengo Media Production for BBC Sounds

As winter arrives, the striking miners are feeling the pinch. They are getting no strike pay and are surviving on donations of clothing and food. The debts are mounting. There seems little prospect of a deal with the Coal Board over pit closures, and thousands of miners are throwing in the towel and going back to work, with the prospect of a special bonus before Christmas. In south Wales only a few make this choice and they have to run the gauntlet of angry pickets as they go into work. The atmosphere starts to turn ugly, and there is violence in the air. This leads to a tragedy: a taxi driver taking a miner to work is killed when a concrete block thrown from a motorway bridge lands on his car. Some believe this is a turning point for the strike, and that support for the miners now ebbs away. Presenter: Jonny Owen Series Producer: Clare Hudson Executive Producer: Steve Austins Assistant Producer: Ffion Clarke Development Producer: Branwen Davies Sound Designer: Meic Parry Sound Editor: Adam Whalley Composer: Richard Llewellyn Series Consultant: Dr Ben Curtis Strike is a Bengo Media Production for BBC Sounds

There are efforts behind the scenes to get a deal between the National Union of Mineworkers and the Coal Board to bring the strike to an end. It’s a dark time for Labour leader Neil Kinnock as he tries to persuade both sides to agree on how proposed pit closures should be assessed. He is appalled at Arthur Scargill’s apparent refusal to negotiate. Meanwhile, the law is being used to weaken the NUM’s ability to run the strike – injunctions are brought by working miners who say the dispute is unofficial because there has not been a ballot. Neil Kinnock is clear that the lack of a ballot is the union’s Achilles heel. But that is not what grassroots members in South Wales say: they remain loyal to their leader Arthur Scargill, who, as they see it, is defending their communities. David Hunt MP gets a phone call from his Prime Minister – and within hours he goes on television as the new Minister for Coal. He promises there will be no power cuts on his watch. And there is what looks like some good news: the colliery overseers’ union NACODs has voted to strike which would bring the whole industry to its knees within days. But that is another false dawn for the NUM. Presenter: Jonny Owen Series Producer: Clare Hudson Executive Producer: Steve Austins Assistant Producer: Ffion Clarke Development Producer: Branwen Davies Sound Designer: Meic Parry Sound Editor: Adam Whalley Composer: Richard Llewellyn Series Consultant: Dr Ben Curtis Commissioning Editor: Bridget Curnow

Nottinghamshire was the flashpoint of the miners' strike – ninety per cent of the men there carried on working, and so their pits carried on mining coal and keeping the lights on across Britain. For the ten per cent who were out on strike, it was a tough time – seeing friends crossing picket lines and lacking the scale of community support that the miners had in South Wales. Presenter Jonny Owen was born in the valleys but now lives in Nottingham. He has friends on both sides of the divide, and in this episode, they tell him how they came to the decision they made about joining the strike. The divisions created by the strike live on. To this day, when Nottingham Forest plays clubs from Yorkshire, their fans are called scabs by the other team’s supporters. Jonny explores the meaning and resonance of the S word – scab – and remembers his father’s refusal ever to spell it out. His father also told him it was much harder to be a striking miner in Notts than in South Wales. In this episode, we hear how right he was. Presenter: Jonny Owen Series Producer: Clare Hudson Executive Producer: Steve Austins Assistant Producer: Ffion Clarke Development Producer: Branwen Davies Sound Designer: Meic Parry Sound Editor: Adam Whalley Composer: Richard Llewellyn Series Consultant: Dr Ben Curtis Commissioning Editor: Bridget Curnow