The story of a ‘boss man’,his community and the 1984 miners’ strike

Background

The coal miner, his work and his community have long been objects of fascination; with the coal miner, for a very long time, being seen as a key figure in British society and a major contributor to the national economy (Dennis et al., 1956). Such an enduring interest in miners is rooted in a fascination with the gruelling nature of the miner’s work and the developing militancy of the workers that was so publicly displayed throughout a range of countrywide strike actions, demonstrating the collective power of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). The two most recent significant episodes: the 1974 strike, which is seen as ‘bringing down’ the then Tory prime minister, Edward Heath, and the 1984 strike, which is held as the ‘final battle’ for control of British Coalfields, heralded the rapid decline of the mining industry. The number of miners employed in the UK fell from 218,800 in 1981 to just 8518 in 1994 (Fieldhouse and Hollywood, 1999), reducing further to 3000 by the end of 2011 (Moss, 2011).

Accounts of the 1984–5 miners’ strike are now well rehearsed, with similar observations being repeated throughout a variety of forums: the strike represented a ‘major watershed in British political history’ (Bradley, 2008: 338); it was a class war with the then Conservative party leader Margaret Thatcher intent on undermining the British labour aristocracy (mining, steel, shipbuilding); economically viable pits were closed; and well paid, secure work was replaced by feminized, precarious employment, with communities in Wales, Scotland, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Durham destroyed by economic and social disintegration (Beynon et al., 1991; Fieldhouse and Hollywood, 1999; Winterton, 1993). Although the 1984–5 strike produced an abundance of literature, discussion of the strike has ceased to be fashionable (Winterton, 1993), as though it is an episode that has passed into history and is no longer relevant to contemporary issues. It is with rare exception (see Bradley, 2008) that more recent reflection is seen on the contemporary significance of the strike and its consequences for contextualizing/understanding changed forms of work, class and gender relations, occupational identities and ‘cultures of opposition’ (Beynon et al., 1991; Bradley, 2008: 339).

Especially neglectful is the way it is accepted that existing literature has covered all of the ‘stories to be told’, when the vast majority of accounts of the 1984–5 strike focus on the relationship between miners and their trade union or their community and the state, but tend to neglect the workings of the organization structure of the colliery. For example, there is very little available that tells us of the relationships between miners and the hands-on colliery managers, the deputies and overmen, who operate at the bottom layer of the colliery management hierarchy and at the top layer of the manual workforce. Their role, therefore, has a significant impact on the day-to-day labour process of miners and the formation of an occupational community, yet they barely feature in accounts of the 1984–5 strike or of mining work in general.

As efforts to improve safety regulation of pits grew and industrial management generally became formalized and more sophisticated, the role of the ‘boss men’ became more distinctive (Perchard, 2007). Unlike many other line managers in heavy industry, and despite mounting pressures to change, the deputy and overman role was, up to the 1980s at least, very much focused on safety rather than driving production targets (Ackers, 1994; Melling, 1996). Indeed, safety is a common theme in all mining communities. There is a consistency in a wide range of very different ethnographic accounts of mining work that shows a reliance on miners to ‘watch each other’s backs’ (Parker, 1986). A collective concern for safety is an issue that unites worker and line manager in the mines, as most recently evidenced by the tragic accidents in Welsh and Yorkshire collieries (Moss, 2011). It is the safety aspects of their role that created a strong professional identity for boss men and a separate Firemen, Overmen and Deputies’ organization emerged in the North East coalfields from the late 19th century, later evolving into a national federation in 1910 and, in 1947, at the same time as the nationalization of the coal industry, into an independent union: the National Association of Coalmining Overmen and Deputies (NACOD) (Ackers, 1994; Melling, 1996).

The development of this distinctive identity helps to explain NACOD’s more moderate and pragmatic approach to industrial disputes, involving a longer-term agenda often dismissed as betrayal (Ackers, 1994; Howell, 1987). In 1984 NACOD did not join the NUM in strike action, having been assured by the National Coal Board (NCB) that a plan for long-term investment in the mining industry had been secured (Beynon et al., 1991). Whatever the intentions behind not joining the 1984–5 strike, NACOD members were labelled as strike-breakers and ‘scabs’. The ‘scab’ occupies a special place in the history of mining communities, hence it is of small surprise that where there is commentary about NACOD’s position during the strike it tends to indicate that, had deputies and overmen supported the strike, the dispute would have quickly ended in victory for the miners (Goodman, 1985; NormanStrike’s Blog, 2010; Socialist Party, 1999).

The aim of this particular ‘on the frontline’ account is to allow the voice of a pit overman, Jack, to tell his own story of being a miner, a trade unionist and a ‘boss man’ – a man who saw himself as miner first and foremost and as manager second (Beynon et al., 1991). Jack worked as a miner in the Blackhall and Horden pits, part of the Durham coalfields, which were some of the most deeply affected by the 1984–5 strike. Jack’s story tells of a lifetime of working in the pit. It does not only focus on the events of 1984–5 but frames the remembered experiences of that time within experiences prior and subsequent to it. In this way, a fuller picture of Jack’s role as a miner, as a manager and as a member of a strong occupational and social community emerges. What is clear from many accounts of the miners’ strike is that different local areas dealt with industrial action in very different ways (Howell, 1987; Winterton, 1993). The power of Jack’s story rests in the detail of local peculiarities and his journey from a 14-year-old ‘pit lad’ to a ‘boss man’, a story that offers both a structured framing and personal poignancy to what is now a well known tale of strike and strife. Beynon et al.’s (1991) ‘tale of two industries’ is one of the few places where an account of NACOD’s involvement in the miners’ strike can be found, and it is also set within an analysis of the closure of Horden pit. Hence Jack’s narrative serves as a useful supplement to this and other accounts, ¹ and adds rich biographical detail to current understandings of the work of a miner, the 1984 strike, the characters involved and the relationships made and broken by it.

At the time of the 1984–5 strike Jack was an overman at Horden colliery. Horden and Easington collieries had a long history of highly unionized, conflictual employment relations, with sons, fathers and grandfathers each having tales to tell of major conflicts throughout the history of the pit. Horden was once the largest mine in Britain and belonged to a highly productive network of mines that travelled seven miles out under the sea. Despite previous threats of closure, there was much optimism about Horden remaining competitive and miners talked of following the coal seam ‘all the way to Norway’ (Beynon et al., 1991). Nevertheless, amidst claims of local mis-management and neglect by the National Coal Board, Horden closed in 1986. Jack was one of the last to work at the pit. His narrative undermines the notion of an over-arching political solidarity among miners, as represented in many accounts of miners’ industrial disputes, but displays a form of solidarity built on a mutual need to protect safety standards and defend working conditions and pay (Howell, 1987). Mining is portrayed as a cohesive community rooted in a dirty, arduous and dangerous occupation that holds a particular dignity and status for the miner (Ackroyd, 2007).

Jack’s story

I went down the pit at Blackhall when I was 14. In them days, ye could go to Sunderland shipyard, or down the town were the steelworks, or the collieries – the pit. I mean, it’s amazin’, ye finished school on the Friday and ye had a job on Monday. Ye was workin’ on Monday. I mean, ye can’t do that now.

I worked me way through all the jobs in the pit. First workin’ on the surface then once I was trained down the pit, me and me mates went down just after our 15th birthday. By 16 years old ye worked all the shifts goin’. Gettin’ out of bed at 2 o’clock in the mornin’ to get to work. At 17 I was workin’ odd shifts on the coal face and by the time I was 19 I was workin’ full-time on the coal face on piecework. Ye spent ye life crawlin’ on your hands ’n knees. The seam I worked for nearly a year at Blackhall was 18 inches high. Then there was the thickness of the roof support, so it was really less than 18 inches. Horden was a bit better – it was 22 inches. That was the height we was workin’ in then. We’re talkin’ about big men crawling through very small spaces. Ye had to pull yerselves along by yer arms. I got me foot stuck one time. Oh aye, I remember that all right. I’m drillin’ and I’m gettin’ me foot set to push ’cause the drill machine was about 3 to 4 stone in weight, then ye had a thick cable to pull, couple of hundred yards along the face, type of thing, and so drillin’ gets set and I got me foot right there, and the strap, that’s what they call it, the steel strap, I got me foot under that and I pushed, then I couldn’t move me foot. But I couldn’t reach for me boot to loosen me lace. So I had to shout for one of the men to come up. He said, ‘What’s the matter?’ I said, ‘I’m stuck, bring a hammer.’ So he comes up and he had what we call a bull pick. I said ‘Will ye knock me foot out?’ He had to hit the steel toe cap off me boot to knock it out so I could move. Eeh, we had some close calls.

It was hard but I loved me time down the pit, wouldn’t swap it or change nothing. As a young lad we used to use the pit ponies. There’d be a gang of us and we’d all gather together to go back to the stables and get the ponies. We used to race along the roadways full stretch gallop. Yer had a lamp hooked onto the pit pony’s collar and ye lay flat on the pony and we used to race. Eeeh, it was smashin’. There was an overman, and he’d be shoutin’, ‘I’ll catch ye lot!’ One day we got in the stables and we noticed everybody had a dab of whitewash on their back. Somebody said ‘It’s Charlie Wilson, the overman, he stands out of sight with a brush and a tin of whitewash and then when we rides past on the horses he’s dabbing us.’ So what we started to de was wear our coats inside out when we was comin’ out the stables after ridin’ the ponies so he couldn’t spot us. Eeh, we got up to something. The mischief that was done down there, eeh.

It’s a good bunch of lads to work with. Ye’ve got to trust each other and be together on things in that sort of environment. It don’t even matter if ye don’t like each other very much, ye still have to rely on each other. It’s work that’s totally different to what we call ‘on top’. It’s different. Men behave different. If there’s an accident ye didn’t have to run around lookin’ for people to get a stretcher party or nowt. They came. And they always helped each other. They might not like each other but the collective soul took over and they used to get stuck in, shoulder to shoulder. The comradeship was totally different down the pit as what it was on the surface. They were different people. So, I wouldn’t change nowt. If I could start all over again, I’d want to de exactly what I’d done.

I earned decent money. I halved it with me Mam, and my half was greater than a lot a wages then ’cause I worked so hard on piecework. I worked hard, I got paid, I did OK. A few years on, an overman came up to me and asked if I wanted to de (do) me deputy ticket. I thought, right, I can properly plan now and settle down. I must’ve been 29 then. That’s the year I got married. While I was doin’ me ticket they said I could’ve gone to university. But if I’d done that I couldn’t have bought this place [house]. One of me biggest regrets is not goin’ to university … I’ll always wonder what could’ve been. If truth be told, I was a bit nervous of bein’ different. Goin’ away from here and not belongin’ anywhere else, but not able to come back either. Not a pitman any more but not an educated toff either – that’s how it was in them days. Anyway, it all worked out alright down the pit. As I said, I went in to shot firing Grade 1 deputy. I got to be deputy, then overman.

The shot firers used to come and blow up and loosen the coals that was cut. Shot firin’ was the first level in a four-tier system of management. They eventually become Grade 2 deputies. The next one was Grade 1 deputy, he was the boss man. Then the next was what they call an overman Grade 2, who was higher up than the deputy Grade 1, and then ye had the next one, overman Grade 1, but they were a select few; four or five covered the whole pit. I wouldn’t take that job. I said, ‘No, I want the job where I’ve got the most say and I can make me mouth go the most.’ So I stayed down the pit with the lads and I became the union secretary. So, I’m made a boss man and at the same time I’m union secretary. There wasn’t many overmen in that position.

I became a Grade 1 deputy the quickest that anybody has ever been at Blackhall Colliery. One man come and he says, ‘Is it right ye’ve been staffed?’ I says, ‘Yeah.’ He says, ‘Do ye know how long I’ve been waitin’ to be staffed?’ I says, ‘No.’ He says, ‘Fourteen year. I’m not staffed yet as a Grade 1.’ I went on to be Grade 2 deputy. Then a few years later the boss came up and said, ‘Yer going to be made an overman. Keep yer nose clean.’ I said, ‘Just a minute, what d’ye mean by keepin’ me nose clean?’ ‘Just keep yer nose clean.’ So, then, another feller come up and said, ‘Ye’re goin to be made an overman, keep yer nose clean.’ So I asked him an’ all, ‘What does keep yer nose clean mean?’ And then the penny dropped. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘I’ve got ye now, haven’t I? I’ve to do what I’m telt (told). I’m to become the yes man to the manager.’ Well, there was no way that was goin’ to happen. I was a deputy and that’s management – but it’s management for the lads. That means deputies and overmen often rubbed up against senior management. It had to be that way ’cause them sittin’ in the fancy offices don’t know or forget what it’s like down the pit. So I didn’t get the overman’s job at that time ’cause I wouldn’t kowtow. I never have kowtowed to anybody in me life. Me Fatha (Father) got finished at the pit at Blackhall ’cause he spoke his mind to the colliery manager who was called Chapman, a swine of a man.

Anyway, that’s why I was born in a field in a gypsy caravan just below Blackhall Rocks. That’s why we lived there on the beach till 1938 when the Government passed a law that said anywhere where there was beaches and Germans could land, the local councils had to move the people away. That’s how we got a council house. Same with me Fatha, I wouldn’t kowtow wi’ them and never said yes, never a yes man, ever in me life. I did eventually become overman Grade 2 – as I said, I wouldn’t take the job of overman Grade 1 as it becomes an office job. I took overman Grade 2 ’cause by then I was union secretary, so they didn’t come and tell me to keep me nose clean any more! Mind you, I was a tough boss. I was known as the ‘Blackhall Bastard’. But, me men, them that worked for me, I’d stand in front of them, get between them and the next line of management. Aye, management had to come through me to get to the lads. I stood up for me men.

There was tough times though. Times that tested us all and made us question what’s right and wrong. Two of them times were the big strikes. The first in 1972 and 1974 ended up bringin’ down the government – Edward Heath was in trouble all right. But that wasn’t the intention of Joe Gormley, who led the strike. He had the men’s welfare in mind … he wanted better pay for them and better conditions. And we got them. But the 1984 strike was different. It felt different. Scargill and Thatcher was at war. Blackhall pit had closed in 1981 and I was at Horden pit then. I wasn’t on strike. I wasn’t in the NUM. I was in NACOD. I went into the pit but just to ensure everythin’ was safe. Horden pit’s seams are under the sea and we had to make sure the pumps were goin’. But I’d never de another man’s work while he was on strike. It was over in Easington ² that the biggest troubles took place and things got nasty. Some lads tryin’ to get into work, pickets stoppin’ them and then the polis (police) wadin’ in. I mean, even now, to this day, there’s brothers who dinna (don’t) speak because one was on the picket line and another went back to work. Or one might’ve been deputy and one NUM. That’s it. That’s what it did. It split families. It split villages. People still cross the street to avoid walkin’ on the same side of the road as a ‘scab’.

Deputies and overmen were called ‘scabs’ ’cause we went into the pit, but we wasn’t doin’ another man’s work. I tried to explain to a picket line once what I thought a scab actually is. A scab is what the body produces to protect itself while it heals. Horden coal seams go seven or eight miles out to sea. If the pumps stopped runnin’ there wouldn’t be a pit to go back to. And actually, NUM were mad with us for not supportin’ Scargill but it was them who asked that we help cover pumpin’ stations. We never worked, we supervised the maintenance work on the pumps. We spent the least time possible down the pit. There was some callin’ of ‘scab’ but the pickets recognized I might be management but not in the way of the big bosses. Ye see the basic principle; a trade unionist does not do another trade union’s work that’s on strike. That’s a basic principle. At Easington they were doin’ NUM work down the pit and they said, ‘Oh, we’re gettin’ the pit ready for when ye come back to work.’ We wouldn’t allow that. But there was some funny goin’s on.

I remember the night the ’84 strike started in Horden. Everybody was out on the streets shoutin’ and bawlin’. They had their fettle up. They was on the pavements and the polis was on their way. I telt them to get off the pavement and on the road and then they couldn’t be done for obstruction. The polis came and couldn’t touch them. But still, we was the ‘scabs’. Taxis had brought in the deputies from the pit villages around the area to gan (go) into the pit for supervision. We got to the top of the street and the pickets was like a pack of wolves bayin’ for blood. I was focused on one man that was in charge of the pickets. That was me target, to talk to him and see the lay of the land. I’d already decided it wasn’t a good idea to drag all the deputies down there but the senior chap says he needs to get into the office buildin’. So, I’m walkin’ along wi’ the senior manager. I gets to the pickets and I started me spiel. ‘We recognize your picket line but this man wants to get into the office.’ And this lad, who’s headin’ up the pickets, he leans forward and he says, ‘Jack, bonnie lad, yer on yer own.’ It never registered, so I went through it again and he smiled and he said, ‘Yer on yer own, Jack, the boss has buggered off.’ I said, ‘What de ye mean?’ He said, ‘Look over yer shoulder.’ The senior manager had gone and left me stood there on me own. So I turned round and sent all the deputies back into the taxis and sent them home. The senior manager had to walk home, he was on his own from then on. Nobody in the pits, on strike or not, would trust somebody who walked off like that. What was he thinkin’?

Those lads on the picket line were our lads, we all worked together down the pit. An example of that was one day me and one of the lads was walkin’ past the pit gate. I thought, ‘By, it’s quiet this mornin’’, and we realized that there was no pickets. It was some way into the strike by this time. They’d obviously slept in. I sent somebody to knock up a couple of lads I knew should’ve been on the line. They come scramblin’ out of bed and onto the line! It was tough; week in, week out, in all sorts of weather. And sometimes on empty bellies. There was a lot of hardship. People had nowt. And bairns went hungry. It wasn’t right. Bit by bit they went back to work. But it wasn’t like the strikes in the ’70s. There was no winners this time.

I’m a trade union person. All me workin’ life, whether I was in the NUM or NACOD. It’s written through me like a stick of rock. I don’t know if ye ever saw the union banners but most of them had one sayin’ on them: ‘The strong shall carry the weak’ and I believe that. I gave me life to that at the pit. The strong shall carry the weak. I still believe in that now. It might’ve been hard, dirty and dangerous work but it was decent ’cause we was recognized for what we did. The union did that for us. It’s not a bad thing that men don’t have to rely on diggin’ underground to make a livin’. It was never right to send men down like that. But what did they put in its place? Workin’ at the car plant at Sunderland? Or at the crisp factory in Peterlee? Trade union’s a dirty word there now. It wasn’t about pits runnin’ out of coal or miners gettin’ greedy, was it? It was about gettin’ control of the unions. It’s good that people are reminded of that. Who’s goin’ to carry the weak now?

Eeh, talkin’ through things has made me examine me life all over again. That’s not always a comfortable feelin’. But what always governed what I did was the thought that one second afore I die, I want to be able to look back on me life and be ashamed of nowt. I think I can de that. I’m not so sure the top brass of the NUM, the NCB or the politicians can say the same.