i seem to remember it was that comb over scarecrow scargill destroyed the mining communities in his misguided attempt to bring down the government of the day. let's face facts. when it costs more to extract coal from the ground than you can sell it for, it's a non-viable business . no matter who is in charge of the country.
I apologise before hand for derailing the thread but I can't let Tels post go unanswered
Yes it was no longer economical to extract coal from deep coal mines when it was competing with imported open cast Australian mines and often subsidised coal from deep mines in Germany and Poland
Yes there was a political agenda from Scargil and an equal determination by that woman to get one over on the miners for previous advantages they gained which were justified when they occurred
If big job losses were to occur in a town reliant on say a huge car manufacturer,it is always right and proper that the government try and ease the effects of closure by trying to stimulate other industries to provide alternatives,provide training opportunities and generally ease the burden on the town
The mines closing would be hard to bear in normal circumstances when the welfare of communities would be considered
What she did was vindictive,callous and completely and utterly com passionless.
Her revenge and the price paid was not just the closed mines,it was the communities and the children of the communities that bore the terrible price she inflicted
A whole generation of the young lived in poverty and despair
She imported a vicious american to quickly and mercilessly close as many and in as short a time possible of the mines,with no care what happened to the communities they served
Unlike large towns and cities,the mines had a almost monopoly of work available in these areas,without them there was nothing,there was no alternative programmes to stimulate any other work or industries or even training to take their place
For many years a whole generation was thrown in the gutter,they grew older with little care to the life and culture that went before,all they had was destitution,not surprisingly these communities changed for the worse and are now not recognisable to what they should have become
She may be revered by those in other parts who gained from her evil but here she is a witch who cast an evil spell on those who did not deserve that treatment,she took her revenge on a whole generation of the children of many communities
May she lay peacefully in her grave and hope that the likes of her never again get in a position of power over innocent people