Today somehow didn't start until 6pm. I spent the evening reflecting on the Miners Strike of 1984. That makes it the 25th anniversary this year. Billy Bragg is doing a tour of Wales to commemorate it, and tonight Inside Out (local topical issues TV show) showed a feature on the North Warwickshire mines. Added to all that, on the way up to Newcasatle at the weekend I noticed I was passing the former mining villages, rolling the names in my mouth. I even considered visiting Easington, the pit village where Billy Elliott was filmed, in the way that I might visit the former home of a favorite author. I was persuaded against this crass act by my brother who remarked that the pit villages were hard places that didn't welcome strangers. I've no idea if he is right about that.
Anyway, according to various Internet sources, the government announced the first round of pit closures on 1st March 1984, so there's bound to be more on TV about it coming up. I was 15 at the time, same age as H is now. We were encouraged to take an interest in current affairs, so long as we took the girls' school Conservative view, so I watched the BBC news every night back then. I remember being confused at the arguments, and saddened by the violence. It shook me horribly that it was evident that the police sometimes acted in a brutal way. Until then, I had a childlike impression of police officers being a bit like Dixon of Dock Green.
The prevailing attitude in Cornwall was that the miners were right, but on to a looser and would do better to work while they still could. After all that was what the Cornish did as the tin mines closed around them, one by one. The TV showed the work of the Women Against Pit Closures. Hearing them got me to reading Spare Rib, and a handful of years later, all the feminist literature I could get my hands on, so I daresay, it did change my life in as much as you couldn't read Spare Rib and vote Conservative. It also split me further from my fellow pupils of Truro High School for Girls, but that chasm was deep and wide to begin with. I didn't get the importance of it though. I was too sheltered, and it was too for away. I was like my Nan refusing to give a charitable donation in the tin the milkman carried, I never got the point.
One of the big shocks of my life came three years later upon arriving at college in Leeds. I met a boy who was so aggrieved by the outcome he talked about it at every opportunity, we were unable to be friends (or even in the same room) on account of my indifference to the cause. I did a bit of reading up on it tonight though, and look forward to being educated over the coming months. I found some wonderful photographs by Martin Shakeshaft http://www.strike84.co.uk/
Why did the day begin at 6pm? Because I seem to be unable to cope with my period. It sent the rest of my body into the mire today, and mostly, I spent time coping with the mess. I have no idea how I would cope if I had a job. Now though, it seems to have run its course. Roll on next month - not!
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