STRIKING TIMES (MINER, 49ER)

It was quite interesting to watch a recent programme about the 1970s and to be re-exposed to the strange world of the miner’s strike of 1972 and the fact that, because of the power that the miner’s held over the, er, power of the nation, that the government totally folded under the pressure and gave in, giving the strikers everything they wanted and more. That this victory was able to address the grinding poverty of the mining areas (for a time at least) was, after all, no bad thing, but you can tell that it felt a bitter thought or two in the subconscious of the nation for many years afterwards, not least because of the threat of further strikes and other industrial action basically humiliated and destroyed the Heath government two years later.

Strange too to see all those long flowing locks and moustaches on display from amongst the rank and file of the young miners back in that post-1960s era, when the expertise in male grooming wasn’t quite what it became. I well remember an episode of “Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads” from about that era when “modern-man” Bob went to his hairdressing salon, much to the distain of his crew-cutted friend, Terry. However, long hair was the fashion then, even though a lot of working young men didn’t really know what to do with it once they’d grown it and so ended up with it looking rather lank and greasy and, to our modern eyes looking back, rather ridiculous, especially amongst the men working in what was considered to be a very masculine profession, although I did not really need to find out from that documentary that they often worked naked whilst deep underground because of the unbearable heat.

They rarely showed that sort of thing in the “How and Why Wonder Books” I can assure you.

The programme also showed how they were being persuaded to wear hairnets in what might very well have been the very first wave of what the Daily Fail would now probably call “Health-and-safety-gone-mad!!!”

I’m very sure that, if what that documentary was saying was true, those little nets might have been swiftly transferred to holding in place other, more intimate, areas once the  “Health and Safety Police” had returned to the sanctity and safety of their clean, whitewashed office block.

Fascinating also to see a young Arthur Scargill in his pre-combover days, speaking very eloquently about his members wanting to join in with the aspirational society at a time when everyone on TV seemed to sound what can only be described as a bit “posh” to our ears nowadays. They showed an old “Top Gear” clip on a new “Top Gear” recently and the familiar bombastic voice of Jeremy Clarkson was pitched both infinitely higher and infinitely “posher” than it is these days, and it seemed most odd.

I wonder when that changed…? I suppose that it was a gradual progression, but the sudden juxtaposition of those two distinct points in his broadcasting career seemed very jarring even though, in reality, it probably all happened rather gradually. Like when they show those “compare and contrast” clip montages of Margaret Thatcher in the 1970s, it’s the differences that you notice most. (Mind you, just hearing her voice, even now, still sends a tingle of terror up and down where my spine would be if I had one…).

I suppose it’s a bit like when someone you know gets a very dramatic haircut. Immediately they look very different, and then you get used to it and, after a short while, it seems perfectly normal. Then you see photographs taken of them with the old hairstyle, perhaps maybe taken only a few days earlier, and that look seems strange to you.

Mention of Margaret Thatcher of course brings us to the tricky matter of the long-delayed sequel to the miner’s strike “Miner’s Strike 2: Unforgiven” that caused so much angst in the 1980s.

You can tell that the humiliation of that previous Conservative administration still burned deep in the heart of darkness of their memories, and probably explains a lot about what happened during that second, longer and far more bitter period of industrial strife and unrest. This time, from day one you knew they were not going allow themselves to be humiliated again and the battle lines were drawn and, well, we all know what happened.

I spent a lot of my time during those angry couple of years studying in South Wales, which was, back then, one of the heartlands of that oh-so-brutal mining industry, so it was very difficult not to get drawn into the argument and the bitter struggle, even if it was only by contributing to the buckets that were regularly placed under your nose in the pubs and the canteens, requesting you to help with the strike fund, and joining in on the odd march, as the S.U. was prone to do.

This, of course, all comes flooding back to me when there’s all this talk of the tanker and other lorry drivers being able to bring the country to a halt, which of course, in terms of the fuel supply, they essentially are. Nowadays, in the ever-continuing power struggle between the interests of business and the interests of their employees, it’s very difficult to see where the real power lies, but, if you have control over something that is a vital resource, they you are definitely holding a very strong hand indeed.

“Bitter politics there, yes indeedy!”

'MY LITTLE ACTIVIST' AND FAMILY MATTERS

I had to get up early on Saturday. The beloved had decided to attend the protest rally in London along with some of her colleagues and she needed to meet the coach at 6.30AM in the City Centre, which meant getting up no later that 5.00AM to drive in if she was to have the remotest chance of making it in time. So, the alarm was set (although of course I didn’t really need it), and after a swift breakfast and a final check on the ‘survival kit’ (or ‘lunch’  as it’s better known…) we leapt into the car and I dropped ‘my little activist’ (this is not meant to be patronising - although I fear it might appear as such - I do mean it with genuine affection) off in the big city anticipating something of a big adventure and a grand day out exercising the right to protest against the cuts that are making many people’s lives over here much more miserable than they were.

I could have gone along myself actually, and probably would have done if I hadn’t had a prior family commitment which, in the end, didn’t turn out to have been the joyous experience that it could have been. So, after I headed home from that, I spent a long and worrying afternoon hearing that trouble and violence had started to mar a supposed peaceful and fun family day out, and feeling unable to protect and support someone terribly precious to me and keep her safe from the actions of the idiotic few. The extremist element do worry me whenever they hijack these peaceful protests, not least because I would rather invoke the peaceful spirit of Gandhi when it comes to such things as protestation and injustice anyway. Instead it seems that a ruthless determination to seize the headlines by shock tactics means that the main message, the important point, once more gets lost, or at the very least fudged, because of the more (in media terms) ‘sensational’  actions of a few, and I wonder how many times that would have to happen before they came to understand this. Unless that is the point of course, which gets my sense of paranoia twitching chronically. Give the news media a ‘bigger’ story and the genuine concerns of the vast majority of demonstrators can be all but ignored, and the focus can instead be put on the more extreme agenda of the few which somehow manages to devalue all of the argument.

So, is this sudden development of a desire to rediscover her political activist roots a cause for concern…? Well, obviously, because I was concerned for her safety. Has my beloved managed to evolve and somehow left me behind to wallow in my own despair… again …? I do hope not, but I do suspect that by the day, we’re becoming more like Brian and Esther in BBC television’s “New Tricks” in the sense that he’s a bit of an oddball, prone to bouts of manic depression and occasional insightful enthusiasms, and she’s the terribly sensible and long-suffering one who knows how many beans make five.

They had a lot of fun at work in the run up to this event, happily discussing the possible banners and placards they might make. One of her more radical colleagues suggested our political leaders’ heads on pikes with the caption “These are the only acceptable cuts!” which made me smile, but I was aware that it probably wouldn’t have been the wisest tack to try, although my own idea, “Nobs out!” didn’t go down too well at all either…

Personally, something more like the now classic “Father Ted” protest signs, “Down with this sort of thing!” “Careful now!” (which were of course actually used by some) would probably have been more in the intended spirit of the thing, but then, for much of the time, serious political activists can sometimes be a very humourless bunch who really can’t see the joke. Maybe they’re right to be serious about things like that of course, but in my experience they are very capable of taking themselves far too seriously. The problem I have with the most extremist of them is that they don’t seem to realise that most people really want to just live their lives fairly quietly and without interference and aren’t too bothered about lots things as long as they are left alone, whereas any form of extremism or extremist position where someone wants you to change and become more like them, is always, always, something to be avoided if at all possible.

I don’t lack my own more politically active past, you know. I was at a college in South Wales during the miners’ strike in the mid 1980s, so having some kind of political opinion was unavoidable, and I was even, for a short and undistinguished term of office, a Student Union officer, during which time I attended meetings and joined in on a few marches myself. Granted, it was only my crushing inability to say ‘no’ to anyone desperate enough to consider asking me to do it that got me elected (unopposed) to the position in the first place, but I dutifully turned up when I was supposed to and held my hand up at the appropriate times when votes were required. Sadly, even in that faraway backwater of the political landscape, those who were more politically motivated or ambitious were also prone towards getting themselves involved in such things and they, quite frankly, scared the bejesus out of me. They would arrive, en masse, looking more than a little surly and dangerous in their berets and shapeless stripy wool ensembles (did I mention it was the 1980s…?). They would enter silently before hijacking meetings and making points of order and obscure constitutional points or making unusual demands for strange things like ‘recognised numbers of attendees for a quorum’ (not a hope with our apathetic membership - did I mention they asked ME...?) which had a tendency to stretch half hour meetings to over three hours or more.

Later on, I became a Union officer rather by default in one job I had. Back in the early days of what we’ll still try to dignify by calling my career, Union membership was actually compulsory to work in any print-based industry. My dad had always been a socialist, hailing as he did from the Welsh valleys, and so this wasn’t a problem for me philosophically, and I was quite happy to pay my dues and join the club as long as nothing much else was expected of me. I’ve never thought of myself as any kind of real activist or even slightly politically savvy enough to hold my own in a political argument, but the benefits of Union membership in those days, and the protection it gave to its members made it seem natural to put it into the ‘good things’ column of life (and I rather suspect that there are few people under 25 who might actually understand or agree with me on that, such has been the press they have received since those days...).

Of course the days of the ‘closed shop’ were already numbered and the print-based industries were not immune to this sea-change in the world of the ordinary worker and, within a very short space of time, it was no longer necessary to be a Union member to hold down the jobs we had. Naturally, mostly due to a shortage of cash that many of my colleagues felt had never been improved by their membership, slowly but surely they managed to drift away from being in it. Now, just because I just happened to have a strong sense of self-preservation as I was always convinced that I was going to be fired and rather hoped that the Union might have had some kind of access to legal representation if that ever actually happened, I stubbornly hung on to my Union membership when everyone else in the office had given up on theirs, and posted my cheque off once a month for many, many years after it seemed remotely rational to my colleagues for me to do so.

Anyway, there came a time when new flexible contracts needed to be negotiated and only Union members were allowed to attend the official meetings if the particular corner of the publishing empire in which I worked was to have any kind of voice during the negotiations. So, in the corridors of power, lists were looked at and, to a general feeling of surprise and relief I suspect, my name popped up as, by some bizarre quirk of circumstance, it was found out that yes, indeed, we did actually still have a Union member in the place.

So I was introduced to Arthur the Branch Secretary who picked me up from home and drove me to meetings all around the country and, for a little while, I began to move in what can only be described as comparatively impressive circles. I still see the former National Secretary pop up being interviewed on TV at Labour Party conferences occasionally. I went along with it, of course, because it was my duty to my colleagues to do so, but to be honest, it really wasn’t for me and I found the reporting back to them to be amongst the most embarrassing moments of my life when I look back on them now. I don’t think it did my career prospects much good at the time, either, as I got the distinct impression that I was considered to be something of a troublemaker because of it. So, it came as something of a relief to me to be able to hand the reins over to much more eager hands from amongst the new recruits that had somehow been persuaded to rejoin, when I changed jobs shortly afterwards, and my period as an activist was finally over.

I’m still a member of a political party, by the way, mostly, I fear because I can’t be bothered to cancel the standing order more than because of any actual commitment on my part. I get occasional letters inviting me to meetings, and inviting me to help with campaigns, but I really can’t see myself trying to persuade someone who really, genuinely has the opposite point of view to me to change their minds. I’m quite happy for them to believe what they believe as long as they let me believe mine, and that’s about as far as I would be prepared to go. I’m unlikely to even put a poster in my garden or window as I genuinely believe that drawing attention to your political position isn’t really all that wise any more.

I know. Pathetic, isn’t it? I should be ashamed.

So, whilst the beloved was exercising her right to the freedom of speech, instead I was having a cup of tea with my kith and kin. On the whole though, I should have gone on the march, because the Black Dog pounced during the day and it was not a successful visit. I don’t know whether it was due to tiredness, feeling ‘summoned to appear’, missing my beloved, embarrassment, shyness, anger or just a deep sense of really not knowing how to deal with these situations, or maybe some kind of ‘perfect storm’ collision of all of these things, but something put me into a very dark place and I really would have been better off not being there at all, if I wouldn’t have had to face the option of the crippling sense of disappointment that this would also have created and which I would have to have lived with.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

’Twas ever thus…

Oh, and I think that the world cup cricket quarter-final result was probably my fault, too.

Like I said, “Black Dog”.