[Report on return to work at Kellingly Colliery]
9.30 a.m. Tuesday, March 5th, exactly one year since the strike began in Yorkshire, and we gather outside the Kellingley miners welfare club in Knottingley. Thousands of miners, wives and children gather to march back to work together. We have been invited to march with all the friends we’ve made and to show our continuing solidarity. There are mixed feelings, but no trace of defeat amongst the men and women who have stood solid against the full might of the state: the police attacks; the media lies; the vindictiveness of the judiciary and social security: and, to their eternal shame, the betrayal of the TUC and the labour party hierarchy.
A cheer goes up as the women of Knottingley Miners Wives Self-help Group and Leeds Women Against Pit Closures march in from the nearby council estate to join the mass.
The march starts, 3 miles to “Big K”, the biggest pit in Europe. All through the town people leave their homes and workers come out from factories to cheer the miners along. The women burst into song; home penned tunes like “Knottingley Women” and “We’re gonna get ‘em”.
At the pit gates the NACODs men are waiting. As the NUM return, NACODs have come out on strike. All but a handful had refused to cross NUM picket lines throughout the strike, and the management had used scab labour in breach of the very rules used to justify the sacking of Kent miners.
The column march into the pit to be met by management. After shouts of defiance to the scabs cowering out of sight, the entire column turns round and marches straight back out. Then its back to the club to draw £5 each from branch funds for a well-earnt pint. Along the way, incredibly, scab lorries still drive past to move coal. Inevitably, they get what they deserve – windscreens are smashed.
Down at the club, the sun is shining and the beer is flowing. Y.T.V.[Yorkshire Television] are busy all day setting up a studio for a debate to be shown on “First Tuesday” that night. They have ignored warnings not to bother. A roving Channel-4 crew try to do interviews but everyone is taking the piss.
We go up to the “Wallbottle” pub where the wives group is having a party. Today we aren’t allowed to spend a penny. Dorothy, Dot, Doreen, Margaret, Winnie, Barbara and all the lasses are celebrating with mixed emotions: happy that the hardship is coming to an end but fed up with the way it ended. The strike has changed all their lives – the state has only succeeded in uniting whole communities in resistance.
The c-4 crew arrive to a welcome. So relieved are they that it is easy to relieve them of £40. They try to do some interviews but the cheers and shouts leave the sound recordist tearing of his earphones in pain.
When the pub shuts, those of us that can still walk go off to someones house to continue supping.
Meanwhile, at the welfare club, Jonathan Dimbleby arrives to chair the debate. The miners, by now well pissed, start fighting. Dimbleby makes a hurried escape and the ‘debate’ is cancelled. A whole and very expensive day for the media is ruined. Serves the bastards right. Everyone has a good laugh.
[From Unnumbered issue of Knee Deep In Shit https://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public_archive/11879.pdf ]