MIners' Gala 1984

I’m riding on a lorry through

the Edinburgh streets. Beside

me is a missile, quite small,

made of cardboard painted

silver. Should be black.

Upturned faces in the sun

stare white; some shout:

Save oor pits, missus –

as if this missile

had the power to sweep away

the English government of the day

and blow it back to when

their fathers walked in

heavy boots, pale in the

morning sun and back,

black-faced at dusk

from hellish pits of endless toil

that now would end

and they would miss. And I

and my missile trundle on,

an incidental sideshow

in Thatcher’s Circus 84.

C.M.M 05/12

A sudden memory, triggered by local election talk and the despair of those who feel government cares little for them. This was certainly the case in 1984, the year of the Miners' Strike, after which the mining industry was never the same again. As CND activists we were seen as allies against the Thatcher government, though I felt strongly that in that situation we were merely demonstrating solidarity - for there was nothing we could do about it, any more than the miners whose families lined the Edinburgh streets on that sunny day.