Thirty years ago friend was pitted against friend, brother against brother, father against son.
The 1984/85 miners’ strike divided communities and families... and nowhere more than in Nottinghamshire.
There were more people at work in that county than there were on the picket line. Margaret Thatcher believed it could deal the death blow to the NUM's valiant fight for jobs.
For one man, there was much to ponder during that fateful year.
At just 14 years of age John Lowe had no choice but to venture down the mines to bring home a wage. Now 53, suffering ill health due to decades spent underground and nearing retirement, John would take a stand that would come to define the latter years of his life.
A proud family man who had run the local scouts, he was a miner through and through - and while not ignorant of politics, never an activist.
Until now.
Despite never having been a political activist, the Clipstone picket manager kept a detailed diary throughout the dispute.
It captures the moments of frustration, pride, desperation and drudgery of that critical time.
It details the booking of buses to transport pickets, instructions to them if they were arrested or stopped by police and the coded lists for the flying pickets which were changed every day to stay one step ahead.
On Tuesday 1st May, John records:
Morning picket - more ground lost today, Men drifting back. Suspect a variety of reasons:
a) Beer money
b) No money
c) Pressure at home
d) Greed
e) Bloody mindedness
Despite the lack of cash and food - and the arrests - there are moments of sheer comedy, such as John being presented with a pair of Sussex Police cufflinks as the sergeant thanks him and his fellow strikers “for your co-operation”.
Officers famously earned a fortune in overtime as they were bussed from one end of the UK to the other to police the picket lines.
But as John acknowledges: “I still don’t trust any of them, but if a man is a bastard, I’ll say he is a bastard; if he’s a gentleman, then I’ll say it just the same."
Such was the hunger in the pit communities, miners appeared in court for offences as minor as stealing 17p worth of peas.
John writes:
Our women’s section was working flat out; at their peak they were providing 300 dinners daily from Monday to Friday and in addition everyone registered with the centre received a food parcel every week.
The usual routine would be in operation to prepare the midday meal in the centre, there were vegetables to clean and prepare and the kitchen to set out for the lads and their families.
All the cooking was on an ordinary four ring cooker, the result was the cooker rings and fitting melted with the heat.
Through the dispute, two cookers were burned out in this way and a third was only fit for scrap at the end.
John also tells how the dispute split his own family, describing two sons and a son-in-law as “scabs". His beloved wife Elsie is left crying herself to sleep.
A debilitating experience awaited when John was arrested for refusing to move from his picketing position in front of the pit gates.
Injured and left languishing in a police cell, he was to become one of the thousands criminalised by the authorities for attempting to defend jobs - his faith in law and order destroyed forever.
As the festive season approached, the hardships were really hitting home. By December, striking miners had organised themselves into wood collection teams.
John writes:
Our logging team was working flat-out: Jim had negotiated with the manager of the Forestry Commission at Old Clipstone and had secured an area from which we could take away the dead wood.
A charge of £10 had been made for this right and excellent value it proved to be, easing our fuel situation as it did.
Our old friend Sid – ‘the one they couldn’t buy’ – had initially set us up when he provided four bow saws. The logging teams were in the forest every single day.
Thursday 13th December:
Some remarkable stories are unfolding of the efforts being made by people all over the country. The rank-and-file of the Labour and trade union movements have responded very generously as indeed have the general public.
Much more sympathy is being shown than the media will tell. The harassment many of these groups face from the authorities when working on our behalf is disgraceful. People have been arrested and food and money confiscated. By what legal right?
Friday 21st December:
Time for the party finally came round and right from the start the place was bursting at the seams. It was so much more than a kids’ party: a huge social evening enjoyed by everyone from the youngest to the oldest.
Everyone sang and danced to the finish. Not for one moment did the tempo and enthusiasm slacken and I, for one, was completely knackered by the end. What a great night.
Maggie, you should have been there to see just how beaten we are!
The optimism of that unforgettable Christmas would soon be smashed to smithereens by Thatcher, her police state and a National Coal Board which refused to give any guarantees over the future of the coal industry.
And most dispiriting of all, the 'scabs’ continued to walk through the Notts picket lines.
Wednesday 2nd January 1985:
Back to the grind with the alarm set for 4.15am. We must be bloody crackers. Seven of us turned up for the first picket and we were disappointed to find only one policeman on duty, the idle swines.
Thursday 3 January:
Tried this afternoon to talk to some of the afternoon shift – as distasteful as it feels, it’s the only fresh tack left open to us. One of the lads talked for fifteen minutes and was really sick of it – he would only promise to think about rejoining us and to talk to his wife. If we could get two or three out again, it would really boost the lads; unfortunately it would take a bloody miracle.
Board and media campaign getting into gear now, with figures of six hundred returns given for the last two days. F***** liars!
As the situation grew fraught and the weather colder, John was finding it increasingly difficult to keep pace with events: "We were on the threshold of matters that would decide the future of our organisation and we had to withstand what was thrown at us with all the strength we could muster.
"Had the strike been just the few weeks’ sprint it was in the 1970s, I would not have been troubled unduly, but I was in no condition to weather the demands of a marathon.”
Within a matter of weeks the dispute was grinding to a halt, leaving families split and friendships broken forever.
BELOW VIDEO: CLIPSTONE MINING FAMILIES HOLIDAYING IN CLEETHORPES in 1967 (no sound)
Read more:
John wrote on Monday 21 January:
Nationally, men are returning to work and this is very sad. They are not going back because the cause is wrong; after all this time the poor buggers are being forced back by all sorts of reasons: debt, a lack of money, food and fuel, and domestic and personal problems. Two of ours lost this week.
The case of the Transits in Mansfield: our initial findings were a ‘scab van’ picking up in Pleasley and going on towards Clowne, and police patrol cars patrolling the supposedly closed office block near the dole office, which showed signs of activity with many lights on inside and three wire-mesh Transits still in the closed-off yard. We then found that the vans were certainly driving into Yorkshire and taking part in the ‘scab runs’ there, with police escorts all the way – but that Notts men were not taking part.
What surprised us was that the drivers were Yorkshiremen, some of them from the pit villages they were driving to: I was very saddened to think that such treachery could be enacted by working class people against what were, perhaps, members of their own families.
Thursday 24 January:
What a way to celebrate a wedding anniversary: thirty-two years wed today and I was at the pit by 5am – crazy days.
Saturday 9 February:
Weather very cold today with snow, ice and temperatures well below freezing point. Afraid the lads on power station cover this weekend have a most unenviable job: eight hours out there in this weather, without a fire or shelter, shows commitment of the highest order.
Saturday 23 February:
Used the last of our coal today. We’ve been lucky right through, managing to get the odd bag given and burning it sparingly with logs; our good neighbour has helped out us and others and we owe him gratitude.
The kids on holiday in Belgium are due home this evening; another set are due to go to France shortly and at Easter yet another lot go to Amsterdam. We must never forget our brothers over the Channel.
The Board are offering an immediate advance of £100 to those returning now. How bloody corrupt are they prepared to be.
And soon after, the “unthinkable” became reality as Arthur Scargill's mighty NUM decided upon a return to work without agreement.
John recorded on Sunday 3 March:
This report is the hardest I’ve ever had to try and write. I feel so full of emotion – anger, frustration, shame, bewilderment. I’m finding great difficulty in putting my thoughts together.
Mid-afternoon the news came through that the conference had decided narrowly, ninety-eight to ninety-one, that the strike was at an end. My wife cried tears for me that I couldn’t cry for myself; they’ll probably come later.
I feel so proud of her for the support she’s given in spite of all the difficulties and heartaches she’s suffered.When the history of this dispute is written, the Elsie Lowes of this world will surely stand out above everything: Thatcher pales into insignificance and will never bear mention in the same breath.
Jim Dowen (treasurer) and myself will meet the colliery manager tomorrow to sort out the arrangements for our return. There’s little we can do to help ourselves – we’re in his hands. What we won’t do is bloody well crawl!
As for the £1,000 electricity bill from the welfare – the ladies demanded the right to decide what to do and a subsequent vote was unanimous to ignore it. Good for them!
Monday 4th March:
We finish as we started - on the picket line.
We arrived back in Clipstone from the Notts Area meeting at twelve noon to an amazing sight: the place was solid with police and the biggest picket we’ve had in a long time.
The icing on the cake was the ladies – they had turned out in force along with the lads and the scabs were really getting it.
Afterwards I felt exhilarated and for the rest of the afternoon was on a real high: we’d come in with a bang and we’d really gone out with one.
Tuesday 5th March:
I feel frustration at our inability to do anything about the situation.
Shame I feel for much of the trade union movement, the trade union movement, the Labour movement, our own class and particularly the scabby sort that I now have to live and work amongst.
That our own people could sell out to an administration like Thatcher’s should be unthinkable - well it’s happened.
Today has seemed like a nightmare...first shift back - how do you work alongside you despise?
Events these last three days have been like a funeral: one with Notts placed in the coffin alongside that corpse named ‘hope’.
John Lowe died in 2005.
Veteran Labour MP Dennis Skinner said of the miner: “John was made for the job; that he did not throw in the towel once the fight was lost shows that this tower of strength was the real John Lowe.
"It was there forever, ingrained in him right up to his death.
"Cometh the hour, cometh the man.”
The 1984/85 Miners Strike in Nottinghamshire' is published by Pen and Sword Books Ltd. To order a copy with 20% off visit www.pen-and-sword.co.uk or phone 01226 734222 quoting 'SM2112' to receive your discount
Clipstone Colliery Regeneration Group Ltd have put together a proposal (click here to read more) which would see the iconic winding towers - the tallest in Europe and protected by Grade II heritage status - remaining as part of a thrill-seekers attraction in a bid to revitalise a community which has been hit hard in post-Thatcher era.
If you would like to support them, visit the e-petition at the link below.
https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/61497