Martin

Day 70. Put us in the ground – Wake up. Lie here – Lie here smiling. Feels like it was all a dream. Good one for a change – What a day. Cath opens bedroom door. Come downstairs, she says. Quickly, love. I sit up. I reach for my cigarettes. Quick, she says. It’s on telly. I follow her down stairs. I sit on sofa next to her. I put cigarette to my lips. Television has pictures of Mansfield. Pictures of King Arthur looking like Adolf bloody Hitler. Right hand raised in a Nazi salute. Pictures of broken windows. Smashed-up cars. Lads throwing bricks and bottles. Lads fighting with police. Police bleeding. Police on stretchers – I throw cigarette on carpet unlit. I get up from sofa. I switch it off. Liars. Cath is crying. Bloody liars. Day 75. Bad dreams are Cath’s tonight – To drown. To suffocate – Keep us both up. That and rain. Day 78. Orgreave – First day. Bad from get-go. Lot of knuckle on both sides. Thirty of us from Thurcroft. Sixty-odd from Maltby and Silverwood. Outnumbered pigs for once – One convoy of trucks. Motorcycle outriders. Range Rovers. Seventy mile an hour. No stopping them – Someone picks up a stone. Someone throws it through a windscreen – Then that’s it. It’s begun. Day 80. Orgreave – They stick on an extra convoy. Jack and Sammy come down. No talking to drivers. Non-union as usual. Eighty mile an hour. Motorcycle outriders. Range Rovers. Half of South Yorkshire force out to help them in. Command posts. Cameras on roofs. Smile. Bloody works. Bad as Met for dishing out knuckle. Worse because they’re local. Know you. Get too near front you get a hiding – Black eyes. Stars. Broken noses. Ribs. Blood from your ears. Your teeth – Big push starts up. I go forward. Feet off ground. Into front. Into a fist. Take a punch – Here we go. Here we go. Here we go – I go down. Hard. Someone picks us up. I go backwards. Feet off ground. I fall backwards. Blokes all over me. I crawl out – Black eyes. Stars. Broken nose. Ribs. Blood from my ears. Teeth – Fuck me. They’ve got us in field again – Penned in. Like fucking animals – Lorries come up road. Lorries go in. Ninety mile an hour – No stopping them. Cowboys. No talking to them – Lorries come out. Lorries go off – Loaded. There were a thousand pickets up at Anchor today. Thousand fucking lads stood at wrong end. Pigs had set us up. Lorries had gone in Dawes Lane gate. Hundred of them lads here with us and we’d have had them today, says Keith. I say nothing. He’s dreaming. I look back down hill at place. Horrible – Chimneys and storage tanks. Black and ugly. White smoke and motorway – Bloody nightmare, this place. I hate it. Fucking hate it. Day 84. Pete opens envelope. He looks up. He nods – Orgreave. We go out to cars. We get in. It’s that fucking close we could walk it. I’m in with Keith and Tom. There’s room for one more. Pete tells us to hang on for stragglers. We watch rest of them set off. Twenty minutes later a lad comes into car park. He gets in with us. Off we set. It’s just gone eight when we arrive. Union have got blokes with maps and loud-hailers waiting. Directing you. Telling you where to go. Where they want you. Most of lads from Thurcroft are down Catcliffe end. They send us up Handsworth end. Police are helpful, too – Park here. Park there – We go down a side-street. Get out. Go up top field. End of High Field Lane. Walk down towards front. Must be five thousand here. Easy. Arthur himself again. Every man matched, copper for miner. Miner for copper. Stormtroopers stood five abreast. Ten abreast. Fifty abreast – Five deep. Ten deep. Twenty deep. Land fucking black with them again. Marching up and down. Up and down. On bloody double. Like it’s drill time – Like they’re fucking soldiers. Not coppers – Their gaffers bark orders. Try to corral everyone. Push us about. Not so fucking helpful now – Go here. Go there. Shut it, scum. Stand here. Stand there. Fucking shut it – That game. Half on one side of road. Half on other. Stick us lot in front of Rother Wood. Hear they’ve already let dogs loose on them down Catcliffe end. Maybe it’s our lucky day for once. Loud-hailers crackle. Roar goes up. I look at my watch – It’s nine o’clock. Two mile off in distance, twenty lorries are coming up road. I can see them – them and police escort. Lot of shoving now – Push.