General Chat

Cynthia, if you're talking about the link I posted The Guardian has reprinted articles from all sides, as I said.

They made very interesting reading. I'm not so blind as to think Thatcher did nothing right, I've said as much before. It's sad there there are people who believe she did no wrong in the face of all the evidence to the contrary. Even her own party concede that.

In my eyes she did more bad than good. In others' eyes the reverse is true.

There are still some very ignorant people in the UK who believe everything she did was wrong and equally ignorant people who believe everything she did was right.

The truth lies inbetween those two extremes.

I totally agree with you Cynthia. I too have experience of a Family Business, and I can assure those of you who think it doesn't entail hours and hours of work and worry, (especially if, as we were,you are responsible for the welfare and income of employees,) should have another think. We are now retired, but my daughter and her OH run a transport company, as well as bringing up a young family, and the hours they both work are unbelievable. Paperwork being the main bugbear, liasoning with drivers, catastrophe's of one sort or another, accidents, time shedules, broken down vehicles, staff off for whatever reason sometimes at a moments notice!, so shcedules to be covered Hubby called out to a breakdown/problem in the middle of the night etc etc- So don't ANYONE tell me that unless you are in physical work, you don't know what hard work is! Like you Cynthia, I find that VERY insulting!!

As you can see from my post, Lily, I am insulting myself and the industry I worked in for many, many years. Yes, I found it easy. Yes, it was difficult at times. But most of it in small shops is sitting in the back drinking tea whilst waiting for door to ping. Or putting some stock on the shelves.

Parents of my best friend in Rhondda were shopkeepers. His father came from an agricultural area in West Wales to work down the pits - because life in rural Wales was so precarious in inter-war period. Many Italians came from Bardi and other places to work in pits because it offered a decent wage and a decent rented house.

They could not wait to get out of pits at first opportunity and open shops and cafes. Some of them are still witnesses to just how hard coal mining really was. How dedicated these men were to keeping Britain warm. The danger. The decimation of whole villages (some as late as 1960's) in preventable mining explosions. The community spirit that pulled people through the hardest times. To say we work hard building up our shops, our hotels and our accountancy businesses compared to what coal miners did and still do in places is a real insult and shows total insensitivity.

And I rather think we spent a lot less of our incomes to keep ourselves warm than we do today. Cannot remember the term "fuel poverty" in 1970's (more than 10% of your income spent on keeping yourself warm). There are now 19 energy supply companies in UK all competing with each other to pull the wool over the eyes of customers and making huge profits and paying executives over £5m pa in a couple of cases. The poor continue to get poorer - that was her legacy.

'energy companies are making huge profits'

Are they though? Typically around 5% of turnover, half what they pay on Government obligations such as green levies, social support etc.

"But most of it in small shops is sitting in the back drinking tea whilst waiting for door to ping. Or putting some stock on the shelves."

... in square footage I have worked in a "small" shop, several in fact, where NO ONE ever sat in the back drinking tea except at designated break time. I'd also like John to tell me and the other 'girls' that carrying bags of sand, double swings and climbing frames up or down two flights of stairs wasn't hard work. We 'hit the ground running' every morning before the shop opened and were still 'running' when it closed.

It's comments like John's that have consistently devalued the way people have looked at retail staff imo and ignores the level of hard work and commitment that good staff put in. It's a shame.

Ignore him Rose, he hasn't got a clue really and is obviously judging what small shops do by what he has done in the past.

John does make it sound as though, unless you're a miner, you don't know what hard work is :-S


Living in a mining area myself, it is hard not to be moved by the stories of life down the pit and to listen to the stories of the hardships and dangers involved. However, mining is not the be all and end all of things and miners are not the only hardworkers in this country of ours.


Other occupations bring their own risks and dangers, their challenges and hardships and yes, surprise surprise, even white collar workers run the risk of unemployment, dismissal and redundancy. They may not get their hands dirty but their workload can be tremendous and the levels of stress can be immense.................... and stress is a major killer.

What Rose said.

On the subject of coal miners, I was brought up in the 1940's and early 1950's in a coal mining village and several members of my family died in mining accidents including my grandfather, so did members of many of our neighbours. You just need to visit any of the various mining websites to see why we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to coal miners.

In 1986 my mother asked me to take her out for the day to visit the places she remembered from childhood. We got in the car and we drove around the places she had an association with, Kelty, Glencraig, Crosshill, Lochore, Lochgelly, Cowdenbeath, Cardenden, Ballingry, Hill of Beath, Auchterderran, Bowhill, Lumphinans, in all an area covering nearly 20% of the county of Fife.

I also remembered many of these places from my childhood, to say my mother and I were devastated, would to be to put it mildly, much of these areas had been decimated following the closure of around 15 coal pits which had provided employment for most of the population in the area.

What my mother and I remembered as vibrant and thriving communities, were now just a shadow of their past and unemployment was rife because no new industries had filled the gap left by the closure of the pits, as a result a generation was ignored.

I know, I lived through it, and I witnessed it.

So as we remember Margaret Thatcher and her legacy let us also remember the legacy of those who gave their lives to fuel the fires of industry - The Coal Miners.

I'll go to someone else's words :-) that I found very poignant


Duw, It's Hard
(Max Boyce)

In our little valley
They closed the colliery down,
And the pithead baths is a supermarket now.
Empty gurneys red with rust
Roll to rest among the rust
And the pithead baths is a supermarket now.

CHO: 'Cos it's hard, Duw, it's hard
Harder than they will ever know.
And it's they must take the blame,
The price of coal's the same.
And the pithead baths is a supermarket now.

They came down here from England
Because our output's low.
Briefcases full of bank clerks
That had never been below.
And they'll close the valley's oldest mine
Pretending that they're sad.
But don't you worry, Butty bach,
We're really very glad.

My clean-clothes locker's empty now,
I've thrown away the key.
And I've sold my boots and muffler
And my lampcheck 153.
But I can't forget the times we had,
The laughing midst the fear,
'Cos every time I cough I get
A mining souvenir.

I took my old helmet home with me,
Filled it full of earth,
And I planted little flowers there -
They grew for all their worth.
And it's hanging in the glasshouse now,
A living memory,
Reminding me they could have grown
In vases over me.

But I know the local magistrate,
She's got a job for me,
Though it's only counting buttons
In a local factory.
We get coffee breaks and coffee breaks,
Coffee breaks and tea.
And now I know those dusty mines
Have seen the last of me.

FINAL CHORUS
'Cos it's hard, Duw, it's hard
Harder than they will ever know.
And if ham was underground,
Would it be twelve bob a pound.
And the pithead baths is a supermarket now.
Aye, the pithead baths is a supermarket now."


"An early example of a song addressing the coming of the
"post-industrial" world, and the disappearance of heavy
industry. Max worked eight years underground, so knows
what he's talking about"

Well said, OFG.

Retail - to be compared with coal mining :-D I suppose stress and working long hours could be new problems. But much of stress at work in my view is caused by lack of clarity of objectives, too much spare time to chat and stir. Never that much of a problem in coal and steel communities. We needed (and still need) their products.

In 1950's, loads of Scostmen came to Corby to work in steel. In the early 1980's, 11,000 of them (out of a total population in Corby) had lost their jobs. Proud men were told they might have work on a new Disneyland project that was planned for Corby. Many of them have stayed in that area and have re-trained and now work in large warehouses, and small factory units.

John Redwood said in 1990 that Corby had average unemployment and was a triumph of Thatcherism. Well, I spent a lot of time in Corby in 1990's. It is very central - easy to visit. Go there one day and do your shopping and have a walk round. See what successful Thatcherism actually means to people outside the smarter towns and suburbs. I would say visit a place like Blaengarw - but that is remote and up a dead end up in the mountains of S Wales.

I like that Rose,it's so right

So John...what has been done in these places in the 23 years since she left power?

You speak as though she left last year or that there hasn't been another party in power since.........

13 years of a Labour government and yet still all ills are blamed on Thatcher/Thatcherism.

I'm fully aware that not every policy of hers ws perfect..but please name me a leader who has never made a bad choice from time to time.

Honestly it really gets my back up all this Thatcher bashing.

Sylvia's post was spot on imho

And Guinevere imho also made a great point when she said that somewhere between blind admiration and blind loathing lies the real story (not her words but the sentiment is the same)

Rose. If that song is meant to be suggesting what I think you are suggesting, it has made me very angry.:-| :-|

If you really think Max Boyce wrote that song for any other reason than to vent despair and anger towards Mrs T and her Ministers, you totally misunderstand the coal mining areas.

Edit. Muffy. I think you will find I have praised Thatcher as well as criticised. I feel on balance she was not a good politician. Others think she was. And a lot of our impressions are based on how our lives were affected by her and her policies. I do think she deserves a special funeral like Attlee, Heath, Callaghan, Eden, MacMillan, Wilson and Home all had. But she was hardly a war hero universally admired like Winston Churchill in death - although he had many detractors in life. She hardly merited more than an hour of Commons eulogies, which could have been done on Monday as Cameron had planned.

John, that song is (I googled ;-) ) From the album "Max Boyce: Live at Treorchy",
recorded 23rd Nov 1973, so it wasn't aimed at 'Mrs Thatcher and her ministers' because she was a few years from becoming Prime Minister ;-)

Gets my back up as well Muffy. She made some mistakes but she does not deserve what is happening today.
I saw a photo in a paper earlier taken in North Korea of a child dying at the roadside from starvation. That's poverty!

John I fear whatever I may be "suggesting" is too far beyond your comprehension for me to be bothered to explain today.

:-D :-D

John should go an recheck his facts, the decisions to close coal mines, steels works and ship yards were taken by the labour government prior to margret thatcher. I live in Northamptonshire and the decision to close corby steel works was made in 1975 by Harold Wilson. it was labour who throw all these men out of work, when thatcher came into power, it was to late to stop many of these closers...in short it was labour goverments have put more people out of work than any other goverments, it was labour governments that spent more money than the country earn , , and it was labour goverments that has caused the debts our grand children will have to pay off, when tory left office there was a surplus of cash

Lindi. You are quite right. This process of closing communities down with little hope for a future for the young people was happening much earlier than Mrs T. She simply ploughed in and wiped out whole industries and communities and they are still really struggling a generation later. Despite a lot of European funding and hard effort.

Max Boyce was lucky. He got out after less than 10 years in the pits. And he communicates what whole villages felt about the men from London and their clipboards.

Not happy with you, Rose :-( :-( And patronising me is well below your usual standard..