These were bad days. The deliberate and inevitable failure of the talks. The predictable and inevitable success of the Board and their stooges in the High Court –
The High Court had overruled the President. The Court had overruled the NEC. The Court had instructed the Nottinghamshire Area to hold their Union elections now. The Court had upheld the Nottinghamshire miners’ right to work. The Court had ruled there was no basis to call the strike in Nottingham official –
Bad days, worse weeks –
The Court also held the Union liable for all costs from the Pension Fund case. Terry had not mentioned this to the President. Terry was waiting for the right moment –
Now was not the time –
The Board had just called the President on the phone. Click-click. Their Deputy Director of Industrial Relations. He’d gone on about the Queen Mary furnace at Scunthorpe –
The threat to life. The threat to limb.
He’d begged the President for more tonnage out of Orgreave. He’d pleaded with the President to help them relieve this potential pressure point –
The President put down the phone. He stared at the faces round the table in the Conference Room. He repeated the Deputy Director’s last three words –
‘Potential pressure point.’
The President smiled. Everybody smiled. He nodded. Everybody nodded –
The President turned to Alice and Joan. He said, ‘Get me Barnsley.’
Neil Fontaine stands on the dock in the rain. He looks through the showers at the ships and the lorries. He watches the ships unload. The foreign words on their sides. The foreign flags on their masts. The foreign seamen on their decks. He watches the lorries load up. The stickers across their sides. The grilles on their windscreens. The drivers in their motorcycle helmets.
Neil Fontaine leaves Humberside and Lincolnshire. He drives in circles through the lawless Yorkshire borderlands with Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. The back roads. He passes the reserves parked up in their buses and their vans –
Suddenly Neil Fontaine brakes hard. He swerves across two lanes. Lands in the lay-by –
Roundheads lead their horses across the road. Bloody. They are beaten. In retreat. The steam rises from the backs of their horses to meet the rain. To wash away the battle.
Neil Fontaine blinks. He starts the car. He pulls out of the lay-by. Back to Orgreave –
Neil Fontaine has orders for the South Yorkshire Brass on the passenger seat. Signed orders from her. Sealed by the Jew. To be hand-delivered –
Mass arrests. Serious charges. Restrictive bail conditions –
This is what she wants. This is what she’ll get –
She always gets what she wants.
Neil Fontaine stands on the roof in the rain. He looks through his brand-new binoculars at the allied forces. He watches the horse-boxes unload 32 police horses; the Transits unload 2200 officers in 96 PSUs. He looks through his brand-new binoculars at the enemy hordes. He watches the President of the National Union of Mineworkers. He watches him walk alone down the hill –
The grey trousers. The black anorak. The navy baseball cap. The rain in his face –
Neil Fontaine has him in his sights.
The scabs had won their right to scab. Official. Legal. But no one seemed to care. Notice. Only Terry. The focus had switched. Orgreave. Everything was Orgreave now. Everything had to be done to close Orgreave. It would be the Saltley Gate of this dispute. The turning point. It was a matter of pride. Three miles from the Union’s headquarters. On their own doorstep. Matter of history. The Orgreave coke supplied Anchor. Anchor. The steel complex at Scunthorpe which had been the scene of the Little Saltley of 1974. The President reminded everyone it was his success here in 1974 that had brought down Heath and the Tories. It was a matter of destiny –
The President had done it once. The President would do it again –
This time he would do it alone. This time he had no choice.
The ISTC at Rotherham had refused to black the Orgreave coke.
The President ranted. The President raved –
The President couldn’t tell the difference between union and management –
Management and government –
Government and police –
Police and –
Terry looked up from his calculator. Paul Hargreaves was staring at him again.
Must not sleep. The days of the week are seven pits. Fifty days without her. Fifty nights. Routine now. This loss. These minutes. These hours. These days –
The telephone is ringing –
Fifty days. Fifty nights. Must not sleep. Seven pits –
The Mechanic answers the phone.
They pick him up at Scotch Corner. Black Transit. Four in the back.
They give him a donkey jacket. Stickers. Badges. A sports bag –
Smoke-bombs. Fire-crackers. Thunder-flashes –
Ball-bearings.
They drive him down to Sheffield. They drop him in a suburb called Handsworth.
He walks up Handsworth Road. Police everywhere.
There are a couple of Union men stood about in stickers and badges with a clipboard and a loud-hailer. They call him over. They ask him, ‘Where you from?’
‘Selby,’ he tells them.
They say, ‘Straight up road. Mind yourself now. Pigs are dishing it out.’
The Mechanic nods. He heads up the road –
Disappears from view. Disappears into the war –
Man can lose himself in a war. Man can disappear –
Bide his time. Lie low. Pick his moment. To advance or to retreat –
The decision his. The choice –
Lucky man, lost.
The President was black from the battle. He sat at the end of the table. Maps before him. There had been over 2000 pickets; 84 arrests; 69 in hospital; 1000 tonnes moved.
Paul was in his suit. Terry in his suit. Mike in his.
Joan put a cup of tea down on the table next to the maps. The President was writing notes on scraps of paper. Putting the scraps in envelopes. Putting the envelopes in his pocket. He spoke as he wrote. Spoke about Saltley and Grunwick. Mao Zedong and Che Guevara. Chile and Bolivia –
Spoke of the thousands that would come tomorrow.
‘The Board want to talk,’ whispered Paul in his ear. ‘Talk concessions.’
The President looked up. He nodded. He smiled. He said, ‘I bet they bloody do.’
‘What do I tell them?’ asked Paul.
The President put his baseball cap back on. He said, ‘Tell them we’ll be there.’
Paul picked up his papers. Paul left the room.
The President stood up.
Len said, ‘They’ll arrest you if you go back there.’
The President adjusted his baseball cap. The President nodded.
Len asked, ‘Will you go easy then, or do you go hard?’
‘Hard,’ said the President.
Neil Fontaine stands outside the door to the Jew’s suite on the fourth floor of Claridge’s. He listens to the telephones ring and the laughter rise inside. The corks pop and the glasses chink. The bottles break. He waits for them to stagger out. To stick twenty-pound notes in the top pocket of his blazer. Run hands through his hair and pat him on the back. Neil Fontaine stands outside the Jew’s suite on the fourth floor of Claridge’s and misses how the angels sing –
The lighting of the corridor. The shadow on the wall –
His wings –
Neil Fontaine stands outside the Jew’s suite. He listens to the devils –
Inside.
Monk Fryston, North Yorkshire. Terry and Paul sat in the hotel lobby and waited. Tommy from the Board tried to make small talk. Did they want a quick game of pool to kill the time? A game of pool in a posh hotel while their members were being beaten. Their members were being nicked. Their members were being charged –
Their President lifted. Their President arrested –
Their President jailed.
Terry and Paul shook their heads. They looked at their watches –
Everyone had had enough.
The police had had enough; the police wanted the Board to go back to court –
For injunctions.
The Board had had enough; the Board wanted to talk conciliation –
Concessions.
Everyone had had enough. Everyone except the President –
They were on the verge of the greatest industrial success in post-war Britain!
The President and the Prime Minister –
Insatiable, thought Terry. The pair of them. Terry looked at his watch again –
The President had been bailed. Len and Dick gone to pick him up –
Len and Dick to drive him straight here. Then the talks could restart.
Paul got up. He went to use the telephone.
Terry looked at Tommy. Tommy winked. Terry looked away, out of the window –
The President’s car was coming up the drive.
Terry stood up. Terry went out to the hotel steps. Tommy followed him.
The President got out of the car. He looked up at Terry. He looked up at Tommy –
The President put his wrists together. He held them up in invisible cuffs –
He said, ‘Great Britain – 1984.’