The strike dragged on. Most of the men had thought it’d be sorted within a fortnight, only it wasn’t. Instead, the weather had turned bitterly cold as the men struggled not only to feed their families – many relying on soup kitchens set up specially by the miners’ wives – but also faced the prospect of freezing to death in their own homes. I hated to think of the hardship they faced, but there were just so many that it was difficult to know what I could do to help them all. I was thinking about it one day when Peter came rushing through to the kitchen.
‘Quick, Joan,’ he gasped. ‘Someone’s just tried to blow up Margaret Thatcher!’
I ran through to the front room to watch the news on TV. A bomb had been detonated at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, narrowly missing the Prime Minister. Her cabinet had been staying with her in the hotel for the Conservative Party conference. Many had been seriously injured, including Norman Tebbit, who suffered multiple injuries. But his wife, Margaret, had been paralysed after being trapped by falling masonry. The IRA later claimed responsibility, saying Thatcher had been the target, and although she escaped injury five others were killed and a further 31 injured. The news shocked the nation, and for a moment the media spotlight was taken away from the striking miners. I was shocked that someone could do that to another human being, although, predictably, many of the miners weren’t quite so empathetic.
‘Pity she didn’t go with the bomb when it exploded,’ one remarked.
‘Yeah, it’s a shame they missed,’ said another.
While I understood the men’s frustration, I was shocked at just how deeply their hatred of her ran. Even though there had been IRA bomb attacks during the 1970s, I never expected something like this. The Brighton bombing happened on 12 October, seven months to the day since the miners had first gone out on national strike. However, a month later, in November 1984, a taxi driver called David Wilkie was driving a strike-breaking miner to work in Merthyr Vale, accompanied by two police cars and a motorcycle outrider, when two striking miners dropped a concrete block from a footbridge, killing the taxi driver instantly. The two miners were eventually convicted of murder, but the charge was reduced to manslaughter on appeal.
The attack caused widespread outrage. Even though it was condemned by politicians and miners alike, public sympathy towards the men began to wane. I remember feeling horrified when I’d read about it in the paper. I deplored violence and, except for newspaper reports and a bit of stone-throwing, I saw very little of it at Hatfield.
When the bus transported working miners to the pit down the lane there’d be some bad language, name-calling and a few stones being thrown, but that was it. The workers were shouted at by the striking miners’ wives, rather than the men themselves. They labelled them ‘scabs’, and the name stuck, even long after the strike ended. The workers would be transported in a single-decker bus, with the windows covered with metal cages for protection.
At the beginning of the strike, there were only two men who broke the picket line. They were rebels who saw it as a way of sticking two fingers up at those on strike. But by Christmas that number had increased to eight. The bus would park up outside the medical centre because the management wanted them all in one place. They’d then be deployed to various jobs around the pit top. There were a few cocky men, but the majority of them had returned to feed their families. One day, I noticed that one man seemed particularly upset after he’d been dropped off for his shift. I watched until he separated from the rest of the group and wandered over to have a word. This particular worker had travelled in from Moorends, a small village outside Thorne some 8 miles from Hatfield pit.
‘It’s like this, Sister,’ he said after I asked him what was wrong. ‘I can stand most things, but when people spit on my kids in the street, well,’ he said, pausing for breath to try to keep his emotions in check, ‘it just breaks me heart.’
I felt for him and his family but I could feel the desperation from both sides. It was difficult for them all. The striking miners argued that, by standing together, they were protecting every man’s job and the future of the pit, so the men who broke the strike were ostracised. Some even had ‘scab’ spray painted in red across the front of their homes so everyone would know who and what they were. The striking men despised the working ones because they believed they were playing straight into the hands of the NCB and the government, and weakening their strike action.
Slowly but surely, family, friends and communities were torn apart by what was considered a ‘betrayal’. The working miners had taken an almighty gamble in coming back to work. Once a man had made the decision, there was no going back because he and his family would be cast out. Those who’d chosen to cross the picket line worked in the lamp cabin, charging lamps, or did odd jobs on the pit top. Despite popular belief, working miners never went underground at Hatfield pit. Instead, management would go down to maintain the pit, otherwise it would have flooded. It remained open for when the striking miners returned to work – whenever that would be.
I felt as though we were living in dangerous and unpredictable times, and it reached a point where I almost dreaded turning on the TV because the news had become so bleak. The world changed again when the BBC’s Michael Buerk reported from Ethiopia of famine on a biblical scale. The images of starving babies and children were beamed halfway across the world into our living rooms. It was both shocking and heartbreaking to think that people were still starving to death in the modern world. In Ethiopia families were starving because of politics and an acute lack of food supplies. Back in England, where food was plentiful, the families of miners were also going hungry because of a political decision. Of course, the two weren’t comparable, but I found it ironic that, while our hearts went out to families thousands of miles from our shores, we couldn’t even look after our own. It was 1984, yet people were suffering unnecessarily.
One day, we received the dreadful news that two brothers, Paul and Darren Holmes, aged 15 and 14 years old respectively, had died collecting coal in South Yorkshire. They’d been trying to pick coal in Goldthorpe, near Barnsley, when the embankment had collapsed on them, burying them alive. Striking miners had tried to dig them out, along with the emergency services. Their father had dashed to the scene and, using his bare hands, had desperately tried to save his sons. Tragically, Darren died at the scene while his brother died on the way to hospital. When the funeral was held, a week later, the whole community lined the streets to pay their respects. I shuddered as I remembered the men I’d found digging through the coal tips at Hatfield. They weren’t thieves; they were decent blokes trying to keep their families warm.
Soon, the weather worsened and the redundant Yorkshire pits were covered in a white blanket of snow. With Christmas fast approaching, and with the country turning its attentions away from the miners and towards the famine in Ethiopia, I decided to do something positive. I wanted to help the families, especially the children, so I made an announcement at work.
‘I’m organising a collection for the children of the striking miners,’ I told management. ‘But it’s got to be good stuff – we don’t want to look as though we’re giving them rubbish.’
I was a little unsure of the response I’d get, but, to my delight, just days later I was handed carrier bags full of board games, dolls, teddies, footballs and new clothes. Word had spread and local shops had got involved. Many wanted to donate food too, but I directed them to Stainforth Miners Welfare Club, where it could be distributed fairly by the NUM.
The donated goods were all good quality and, if it wasn’t new or nearly new, then it didn’t go in. The appeal took on a life of its own, until soon I’d managed to fill half-a-dozen bin liners. With the Christmas presents in place, I wrote to the NUM secretary to ask if I could donate it to the miners’ families. The NUM agreed and dispatched someone from the welfare club in a van to collect it all. I explained that, while some of it had been donated by management, most of it had come from the wives. They were mothers and hated the thought of children going without. I wasn’t sure how it would be received, but a week or so later I received a letter thanking us for the donation. I didn’t care about thanks or recognition, though – I just wanted to know that those children would have something nice to open on Christmas Day.
The plight in Ethiopia continued to dominate the news, wiping the miners’ strike from the top of radio and TV news bulletins. A bunch of singers formed a supergroup called Band Aid, and they released a special charity song called ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, which rang out from the radio as Christmas neared. I felt far from festive because each day I’d battle my way into work, passing my friends on the picket line. It was an extremely difficult and tense time.
One bitterly cold December morning, I was walking across the pit yard towards the medical centre when I spotted a mound of snow outside the door by the step. I brushed it aside with my foot, but it moved. I noticed a pair of brown eyes looking up at me – it was a little dog. The stray Border Terrier looked half frozen to death as I scooped him up in my arms. He was as light as a feather and covered in snow, although underneath it he was absolutely filthy.
‘Hello, there,’ I whispered as he shivered in my arms.
I unbuttoned my coat and wrapped him underneath as I unlocked the medical-centre door. I wrapped him in a towel, filled a bowl with some warm milk and gave him some biscuits. Sitting beside the stove, I rubbed his fur with the towel until it was dry and warm. He was so exhausted that he curled up and fell straight to sleep once I was finished. I asked around the management in case he belonged to someone, even though it was obvious he didn’t. Then I called the police station to ask if anyone had reported a missing dog, but no one had.
‘Well, if they do, he’s here with me,’ I informed them. I put down the phone and stared at my new four-legged friend. ‘What on earth am I going to do with you?’ I asked as he nuzzled affectionately against the palm of my hand.
I found no collar or identification on him, so I decided that he needed a name.
‘I think I’ll call you Noel because I found you at Christmas,’ I told him. Noel seemed to like his new name because his little black nose bobbed up as he licked me.
I went into the control room to ask if anyone had any spare sandwiches.
‘It’s for a little dog I found starving on the doorstep,’ I explained.
Within minutes, everyone had crowded into the medical centre to look at my very own Christmas miracle. We all became so smitten that Noel was constantly fed everything from spare bits of chicken to pieces of meat pie! Noel and I became inseparable, but I knew he couldn’t sleep inside the medical centre, so I set him up with a little bed inside the control room, next to the canaries.
‘Bloody ’ell, Sister. It’s like a zoo in here!’ one of the managers moaned.
‘I know,’ I smirked. ‘Just call me Doctor Dolittle.’
The following morning, I went in to check on Noel.
‘I’m off outside – want to come for a walk?’ I asked as he bounced straight out of bed with his tail wagging. He’d made a miraculous recovery.
‘Who’s your friend, Sister?’ someone asked as Noel padded close behind me in the yard.
‘He’s a stray. I found him on the doorstep, and now he lives here,’ I said.
‘He’s like your shadow,’ the man said, grinning. He stooped down to stroke Noel behind the back of his ear.
I looked down at him. It was true; Noel refused to leave my side. I wanted to take him home but Peter and I owned two cats, which had once been strays, so I knew he wouldn’t stand a chance. Instead, he remained at the pit like a little mascot, cared for by everyone.
‘Can I give him a biscuit?’ a police officer asked one day.
‘Go ahead.’
He knelt down as Noel gently took the biscuit from his fingertips. But, instead of eating it, he ran off to bury it deep in the snow.
‘I think he’s keeping that for later,’ the bobby grinned.
But it happened again and again. Every time someone gave Noel a treat, he’d take it and stash it away. It was as though he’d decided he never wanted to go hungry again.
Instead of a ball, I took a rubber nursing glove and puffed into it until it was fully inflated. I threw it around for him along the pit top. Noel loved chasing it as it bounced along the yard but, unlike his food, he always brought it back. He was a lovely little thing but no one ever claimed him. Soon, he was adored by the working miners, police and management alike. His presence helped lighten the mood as the strike wore on. Animals have a unique way of uniting people, even in the most desperate situations, so in many ways it felt as though Noel had been sent to us for that purpose.
When Christmas week arrived, the management informed us that the pit would be protected by a security firm over the holiday period. The only problem was that they’d be bringing Alsatian dogs with them to patrol the yard. I knew the dogs would kill little Noel, so the time had come for him to move on.
‘I think I need to find you a new home,’ I whispered as he nuzzled against the side of my neck.
I asked the men if anyone could offer him a permanent home.
‘I’ll have him,’ one of the surveyors offered. ‘We’ve already got a few dogs at home but I reckon the wife would love him.’
That evening, as we prepared for shutdown, Noel licked the back of my hand as I bid him farewell. I felt choked up watching him leave, but I knew he’d be fine – and he was. I’m glad to report that Noel not only settled down well into his new home, but he also went on to live a long and happy life. However, there was a twist in the tail. Noel wasn’t the little man we’d all thought he was, because a few months later ‘he’ gave birth to a litter of two pups. It certainly explained her need to hide the food supplies in the snow. When I returned to work in the New Year, the snow had started to melt away and I could see just how much the little dog had left her mark. Various dog biscuits, rolls and pieces of meat pies that she’d buried only a month or so before were still there, dotted in the most peculiar places across the pit yard.