90. Sunday September 9th, 1984.

I had intended staying at home today with Kath but we had a blazing row so I went to Doncaster for an SWP miners meeting instead. I’m glad I did because it gave us the opportunity to discuss how the strike is going in our respective areas. There was general agreement that the strike is now firmly on the defensive, with all of us mainly concerned with stopping scabs breaking the strike. To ensure this we need to get more men out onto the picket lines, and as Ian Mitchell from Silverwood told us from his own experience, the way to do that is to ‘go on the knocker’ and visit every striking miner we can to argue why they should be active. At the very least it could prevent men from scabbing, which will be important if we are to go on the offensive in the winter.

There was also agreement that there is a big danger of the new talks between MacGregor and Scargill leading to a sell out, and further demoralisation if they break down,which seems inevitable because the NUM has nothing to bargain with. We haven’t got the bastards by the balls, nowhere near it.

The importance of us selling Socialist Worker was stressed again because that is how pickets can be kept informed of exactly what is happening in the strike. We must always try to sell the paper on picket lines, inminers welfares and strike centrex because it’s vital we are identified with the paper. That’s how we get our ideas across and we can have important arguments at the same time. At Westoe, Gary, Ian, John, Keith and myself have built a good reputation as active militanys and we need to continue being identified with the SWP and put forward constructive suggestions at union meetings. The first one is to get a list of addresses and use all the men banned from picketing to go out and visit men who are not active and try to persuade them to join us.

When I got home I had a phonecall asking me to meet the journalist at the bus stop near our house and I set off in the dark, expecting to meet some hippie type with long hair and flares because I used to read the NME regularly up until a few years ago and that’s how I imagined he would look. I was shocked when a tall skinhead with a red Harrington jacket, jeans and red boxing boots loomed out of the darkness. He introduced himself as Chris Moore and we walked back to my house. I was relieved to hear he’s an SWP member and not in the National Front, as I’d always irrationally thought about skinheads.

We sat up talking about the strike and about music. He’s in a band himself called ‘The Redskins’, whom I’ve never heard of, but he’s brought me a record and a tape of their stuff which I’ll listen to tomorrow.

63. Tuesday June 26th, 1984.

I got no sleep at all last night, and after picketing at Bilston Glen this morning I managed to grab an hour in the TV room of the club before being turfed out by the cleaning woman.

Scotland’s showpiece pit didn’t impress by its outward appearance, looking tiny in comparison with Westoe and Wearmouth. We all assembled at a social club just down the road from the pub and a man who the Scots lads called ‘Gadaffi’ made it perfectly clear he was in charge and would organise tactics. We followed him up the road until we were forced to halt by a double line of police across the road. Gadaffi urged us to follow him, about 200 of us, and we made our way through a housing estate and ended up on a road that ran at right angles to the pit. Apparently scabs drove up this road and we were going to block it off. We lined up across the road and initially caught the police napping but not enough men were prepared to attack the pit entrance and the police arrived in numbers and lined up so we were facing each other. Within minutes a push had started and we began to force them back a few yards before police started rushing in behind us and a lot of men scattered. We fell back and regrouped, linked arms and clashed heavily with the pigs, forcing them slowly backwards until the cry of, ‘man down’ went up and forced us to ease off, only to find no one was down and we’d been conned by the pigs. The pigs took full advantage of our confusion and began forcing us backwards, with some of the bastards lashing out viciously with feet and fists. Some of us retaliated and a few lads were dragged away through police lines.

There was a building site to our right and some of the lads grabbed bricks from here and began lobbing them at the advancing pigs. We beat a hasty retreat and I was one of the fortunate ones to escape unscathed. I cautiously made my way back to the main entrance where the rest of the picket was spent without any further incident.

As we were about to leave at 8.30 I spotted the Scottish NUM leaders, Mick McGahey and Eric Clarke coming through police lines. They joined the ‘official’ six man picket. I asked them if it was possible to co-ordinate the pickets more effectively so we  could concentrate our forces at the best points. McGahey’s reply is classic, ‘Picketing has nothing to do with me son’. I should have known better than to ask such a question of such a leading figure in the class war!

We had breakfast in Dalkeith before being told to gather our things before being moved to better accomodation. Gary and I were to stay with a lad called Kenny McCormack, whom we’d met at the SWP miners meeting in Doncaster. We were going to stay at his uncles house in Arniston, a small mining village about seven miles from Edinburgh. We put our stuff in the house then had dinner in the local miners welfare, soup followed by mince and ‘tatties’. I just had the soup and ‘tatties’ because I’m a vegetarian, much to the amusement of my fellow pickets. We’d barely time to breathe before setting off for the afternoon picket at Bilston Glen.

The sun was burning hot and I was dressed for it in white jacket,shirt,trousers and white shoes. The lads all took the piss and voted me best dressed picket but I was going to the theatre after the picket and wanted to look as smart as I could.

There was an excellent turnout of about 400 men and at least 50 women and we were all confident of a breakthrough. We all linked arms and formed up into a solid block in the road, marching towards the police lines chanting,’Here we go.here we go etc.

The pigs didn’t know what hit them as we forced them back strongly. Unfortunately double decker buses full of pigs soon arrived to reinforce their lines and stopped our progress. The crush was terrible and I lost my shoe,having difficulty hopping on one foot to avoid my foot being trampled. The push broke down as pigs started hitting lads again and we scattered. I went back to find my shoe and was lucky to get it. One of my Westoe mates wasn’t so lucky doing the same thing and got arrested, along with Bede and Gordon trying to help him. It was a bad day for arrests with over 30 lads lifted but that has just made us more determined to return in the morning for another go.

I made my way into Edinburgh to watch my mate, Stuart Hepburn, perform in Chekhov’s,’Three Sisters’. I did feel a bit out of place amongst the posh perfumes and people but I really enjoyed the play. It was excellent, and nice to catch up with Stuart afterwards and have a few pints. He kindly paid for a taxi back to Arniston but I couldn’t remember Kenny’s address and so was forced to find our parked coach, and I’ll have to kip here tonight.

54. Sunday June 10th, 1984.

We travelled down to Doncaster for a meeting of miners who are either in the SWP or close to it. There were 5 of us from Westoe, Gary Marshall, Keith Smoult, me, and two younger lads, Ian Richardson and John Rumney who we have been picketing with and selling the paper to. They are keen on politics but confused on issues such as nuclear weapons and parliamentary democracy.

We arrived late due to a flat tyre but didn’t miss too much. There were miners present from every coalfield except Wales, which is dominated by the Communist Party, and I was pleased to meet up with Ian Mitchell and Steve Hamill again. It was interesting to hear that I’m not the only one having problems with union bureaucracy, and also that other areas are having problems with raising the level of picketing. Steve Hamill spoke about the need to picket at Orgreave and also said that in his opinion Jack Taylor, President of the Yorkshire Area, is deliberately preventing a mass picket by sending men into Notts where the policing is so high it is a complete waste of manpower. Another lad agreed and said we should picket NUM National HQ in Sheffield to draw attention to this. Steve said we shouldn’t waste our time with union officials but organise picketing ourselves at rank and file level. The most important target now is to picket steelworks such as Ravenscraig, Scunthorpe, Redcar and Llanwern. We need to go back to our pits and start arguing for this case because its the only way we can win. We really need to start fighting back against the Tories because people seem to be getting complacent. It was an excellent meeting and if it did nothing else it made us feel we aren’t on our own.

On the way home we talked about the meeting to Ian and John and Gary was particularly convincing because he’s now joined the party. Ian also told me that one of the committee men is spreading rumours that the only reason I opted for jail the other day was so the forgery case against me would be dropped. Christ, those bastards just seem out to get me and I’m wondering why I bloody bother!

Keith also told me that the reason I was chucked out of prison was because I was charged with Obstruction of the Highway, which isn’t a prisonable offence. They were all charged with Obstruction of the Police, which is, and anyway they were all freed the next day after appealing to a judge in chambers, whatever that means.