General Chat

The miners deserved the pay, they risked their live's 'for us', for the nation

....and, what job in the 1970s didnt have a 'perk'......although I dont know how true this is about the miners?

I couldn't disagree more, Errol.
To rely on imported coal was and is a huge mistake. Profit may have been Thatcher's mantra but that doesn't make it right.

But is was costing twice as much to get the coal out than it could be sold for. This couldn't go on, regardless of who was in government.

But Guinevere it was costing too much and was unsustainable as it was.
The only way it could have continued would have been to either massively reduce wages or double, treble even quadruple energy costs for home owners as well associated costs such as groceries etc. That would have led to horrendously steep and unpalatable inflation.

Guin, Psittacosis is caused by birds like Parrots.......I think you mean Pneumoconiosis. :-)

Of course, Ann, thanks. Past my bedtime, getting tired.

There was unpalatable inflation and a recession anyway.

Not all the pits were unprofitable - rationalisation would have meant that some could have remained open but breaking the unions mattered more.

Off to bed now, so not ignoring anyone.

Let's not forget that 'Thatcher' had this planned, well in advance. She stock piled coal, long before she took on the NUM

Scargill, not a fav of mine......but he did have the knowledge that 'she' was about to make huge closures.......some didnt believe him!

I admire our miners and former miners.

'rationalisation would have meant that some could have remained open.....

My point earlier G :-D

Annx maybe you could contract it from the canaries down the pits? lol

Pneumoconiosis "Miners lung" was mentioned in one of my posts

You cannot unconditionally indefinitely subsidise any industry the end result of such action is bankruptcy and countries can and do go Bang

There is no such thing as a money tree or a cupboard always full of money where government can go and make a withdrawal

Roy

I agree Roy..........but they find about 10/12m for a funeral!

Guinevere


I for one am not belittling miners .......... and neither is anyone else is, anywhere other than in your interpretation of what has been written.


We are pointing out that miners were not the only people to suffer.

Practically every industry in the UK has suffered dramatic downturns from the 1950s on.

But you seem not to want to accept that.


Cotton mill workers got no free perks .................... they worked long hours, in an environment filled with minute particles of cotton floating around. They also got lung diseases, one was byssinosis, that crippled, then killed them.

My uncle worked in that environment as a janitor ................ the only job he could do because he was badly injured in WW1, and despite the fact that he had been gassed in addition to the other injuries.

It was not only miners who suffered ................ but miners were undoubtedly somewhat better off than others, in many ways, including the free perk of coal and reduced rents on homes.



IGP ...........

........ I had 5 years of university, with 2 degrees, to add to 9 O levels and 4 A levels.

My take home pay as a teacher in 1964 was £80 a month, paid at the end of the month

We got no pay in August (school holidays), but we did get double pay at the end of September ............... our contracts were for 12 months.

Try living from end of July to end of September on 1 month's pay cheque. It was hard as a single person. It must have been impossible to stretch £80 or £100 over 2 months with a family to support.

By the time I resigned on July 31 1967, I had been receiving £100 take home pay for about 3 months


I had earned more working on the floor and in the stockroom of the Pakamac factory in the summer of 1958 than I did as a new young teacher in 1964.


edited once, for grammar

The Government has no money of its own. Every penny it spends on our behalf is either raised from taxes or borrowed. Current borrowing alone costs each person in the country £750 a year in interest charges.

In addition to being a charge to the country, subsidisation either results in a surplus i.e the EEC wine, butter and grain surpluses or a reduction in productivity and efficiency, or both.

Either way neither is a good thing in the long term.

I no that the estimated cost of MT's funeral was 10/12m but to be honest that's not the real cost

Most of the cost would be for security and the service personnel involved

Does anyone actualy think that all these security and service personnel would have been sat at home doing nothing and not getting paid?

Roy

Does that make it 'right' Roy?

She could have had a private funeral

Security could have been 'helping others', I doubt they stay at home 24/7

There was never any chance of her having a 'private' funeral :-)

That's the point Gins they don't stay at home 24/7

Take the military they are paid a daily rate of pay based on a 23hour 59minute per day salaried so had to be paid even if they were sat at home twiddling their thumbs

As for other costs I was under the impression that the family did offer to pay a portion of the overall cost

Roy

Can we not lay her to rest please?

Remember none of us is perfect. 'Let he who is without guilt cast the first stone'.

Sylvia, nowhere have I said that some industries didn't suffer a downturn.

I said on this page that rationalisation was needed.

As Gins said, Thatcher set out to break the unions, no matter what the cost to honest working people.

Chris, following that logic we shouldn't ever discuss history. Most of us are here because of a fascination with history. Thatcherism is part of history that a lot of us lived through.

I'm lucky in that I survived unscathed but I feel great sympathy for those who didn't and who are still suffering today.

I was never one to say, "I'm alright, Jack, and who cares about the rest of you."

Thatcher created 'individualism and personal gain'. She tore apart the working class communities (divide and conquer)

A 'them and us' culture, which had always been there, became more translucent at the onset of her premiership. The bankers and the wealthy grew in stature and monetary terms and the working class became 'workless'

Having being thrown on the dole, they became known as 'benefit scrounges' What the heck were they supposed to do, curl up in a corner and fade into the background

There were no jobs, they 'had' no choice, much as they don’t today under Cameron's
government.

My father was a skilled steel worker who after redundancy was forced to take a low paid job as a caretaker, my mother worked to make ends meet.

We haven’t seen the worst of this government and the bankers and energy giants haven’t seen the best.

Pareto....what a clever man he was

There seems to have been a two tier coal mining industry, those that were mechanised and those that were not. In the area of Fife in Scotland where I was brought up only about 5 out of some 15 pits were mechanised, at the other ten coal was still being hewed using explosives, picks, and shovels, 8 used bogies to bring the coal to the surface, and the other two used pit ponies.

And yes you got free coal and a house in the miners rows, and you also got a letter from the National Coal Board expressing their sympathy that a member of your family had died as a result of a mining accident and giving you 14 days to vacate the house in the miners row where you lived, as my mother found out 7 days after her father had died as a result of such an accident.