British Coalminers Strike.
Bitch Thatchers Minnions at play. The Horses,
Police Horses
stood snorting by the wayside
their breath like mist
in the winter morning air.
We could see them,
knew that soon
they would be ready, batons drawn,
strange how pigs can ride horses,
we had stood firm against the footpigs
we had a cause to believe in,
our jobs,
then they came.
A trot, a canter, a charge
into us, bodies trampled by hooves
heads ripped by batons, the blood of
Man and Beast mixed on this winters morn,
for to be sure we took some of them
and their bastard horses,
we ripped and tore them
as they ripped and tore us,
no winners, not today, tomorrow?
we will see, the strike goes on. |
Written by Fledermaus (3301 comments posted) 27th March 2008 | Gosh, all this Maggie Thatcher seems to evoke a lot of responses. The woman was already retired when I went to highschool.
Not much I comment on this therefore... | Thanks
Written by maipenrai (783 comments posted) 27th March 2008 | Fledermaus, Thatcher still stirs strong emotions in many people.
Bernie |
Written by Veronica_Milvus (637 comments posted) 27th March 2008 | I did like this, Maipenrai, although I wince at the coppers being called pigs, but I am sure that's how it felt, and how they were referred to, on the picket line.
There's a lot of coppers made a lot of overtime that year. I can understand why Thatcher couldn't let Scargill win, but the response to the strike was so brutal and nationally humiliating. | Hi Veronica
Written by maipenrai (783 comments posted) 27th March 2008 | Some years later I worked on the Ambulance Strike in Birmingham ( I was a Army Medic), each ambulance had it's own dedicated police biker to escort us and lead the way through the city.
we stayed at police stations within the city and a lot of the policemen thought of the miners strike as something like te "good old days", lots of overtime, lots of money and they got to bash a few heads in, pigs. |
Written by stevetroster (1549 comments posted) 27th March 2008 | Hello, Bernie.
This was a good read, full of Bernieisms. I was quite partial to Footpigs.
I won’t comment on the content because I wasn’t there, but it strikes me that there are a lot of people dancing on graves at the moment. Is the Labour party running scared?
“No winners, not today, tomorrow? We will see, the strike goes on.”
Ah, but alas, a winner there was. And now we bash heads in far off lands!
All the best,
Steve. |
Written by Phil (6730 comments posted) 27th March 2008 | You've caught something here, Bernie. I was only a teenager during the miners' strike but all of us in South Yorkshire were involved in one way or another.
Even at the time I was amazed at way the media portrayed a very one sided argument. Some of the sly things the government did were completely immoral. I was reliably informed by a friend's father who was on the night picket in the early days that things were very peaceful: coppers and miners passing the small hours together sharing the same brazier and tea urn. It wasn't until police from outside the community were drafted in that Thatcher got the response she wanted and engineered.
Phil
| Phil
Written by maipenrai (783 comments posted) 27th March 2008 | Met Police and what is today the West Midlands Police did a hell of a lot of damage in Yorkshire and Notts Coalfields.
Bernie | Hi
Written by maipenrai (783 comments posted) 27th March 2008 | Steve, Thanks for your comments mate.
Bernie | Strikes, newspapers
Written by patterjack (1194 comments posted) 27th March 2008 | I am a miner's son , whose grandparent and uncles were beaten up by Special Constables recruited from city slums , armed, and responsible for the shooting killing of the father of a schoolmate during a strike.
The miners' and the dockers' unions in Oz brought workers out of a kind of slavery that the corporations are now trying to reinstate
And among the jackal press there is unfortunately, The Dirty Digger -- may he rot in hell -- now at least an American citizen, and good riddance to him, Oz being cleaner for his absence even if he still carries too much influence as the papers did in the English miner's strike
patterjack | Thanks
Written by maipenrai (783 comments posted) 27th March 2008 | Patterjack, I just hope that one day that old saying " what goes around, comes around" will come true.
we, that is the people and stock that I come from have for years been beaten in to submission by greed and the corporate god of greed, one day, one day this may change, a global recession may not be such a bad thing.
Bernie | Patterjack
Written by maipenrai (783 comments posted) 27th March 2008 | Re the Dirty Digger, President Blair was so far up his arse he could see daylight from the other side, I curse him and all who are like him.
Bernie |
Written by mia_ms_kim (1019 comments posted) 27th March 2008 | This is an eye-opener for me. I grew up in a predominantly Asian community, who admired Thatcher for being a strong woman leader and held her up as a role model. I had no idea of the things you talk about in the poem took place in UK. It's hard to imagine, I grew up thinking "white" people were more "civilised". (The review comments are very revealing, too.) Wow.
Mia | Hi
Written by maipenrai (783 comments posted) 28th March 2008 | Mia, thanks for your comments, To some of us of a certain age the Thatcher years are engraved in our minds and the resulting political destruction of the Trade Union Movement of the day as had a profound effect on that can still be seen today.
when I left school at 15 I could just about write my name, I went to what you would call today a inner city school in the "slum " area of Hulme in Manchester, I think looking back that the education people must have thought that there was little need to give us a "proper"education , after all we were just fodder for the low paid jobs in the factorys or the mines.
The first people to take a REAL interest in many people like me at the time were the Trade Union Movement, I got sent on various courses to improve my education by the Unions, I owe them a debt.
Bernie |
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