KEN LOACH'S programme last Wednesday was the clearest statement yet made on television as to why the mining communities have resisted the Tory government over 10 months.
Songs, poems and miners' strike captured the collective community of the villages and the spirit of resistance that has kept the miners battling against pit closures despite all the odds.
Nor did the programme draw back on letting the miners and their families SLaLt their OWE case. was crystal clear London Weekend television was reluctant to show it.
Even Channel 4 ended 'the showing with a caveat urging viewers to write in if they had a different opinion.
The first half dealt with the reasons ior ine surike.
Something that the media hopes vou'll forget.
Miners told of how pit closures would lead to job loss on the railways and in the steel plants. South Wales miners reminisced bitterly over a meeting in during the steel strike, where Bill Sirs had miners and ralway workers had COlLC ouL on sunke or one day in protest at MacGregor's attack steel jobs.
Inhabitants of Cortonwood explained how there was one main street in the to the school. If the pit closed the wollully would be decimated. experiences of the 1984 Cartoons explained the Cast against voluntary redundancy workers had no right sell the jobs of their children glalla children.
Women, prickling
the suggestion that miners should pack up and move, asserted that they had no intention of becoming industrial gypsies again. Reviewed by Valerie Coultas Women were a central or une story They have risen up, explained a miner's mother and wite from Wardley, and there's some iron ladies up here who are not giving in to Thatcher.
Women were shown marching in August, staffing canteens and reading poetry. Unfortunately they were not shown engaged picketing many of them have been throughout the strike.
The poems and songs reflect the strong cultare ot resistance in the mining communities. older read a poem full press insults, their attacks countered by the assertion of class solidarity. All you high-up nobodies take note of what we say' This tradition of solidarity explaits une se cond half of the programme which features the conflicts with the police on the picket lines Orgreave ane the villages like Armthorpe.
Police brutality is clearly exposed at Orgreave. In Armthorpe a woman explains on 2000 riot police into the village breaking into houses, • pusi ing her against the wall and hitting her that raid, set trend that raid, truncheons. The police act just like the black and tans, Of course he's dead right. Where a community resists, be it black, Irish, or a mining village, it has be crushed criminalised 'If you do get rid of this government, we'll be une next government, says a policeman to a miner on the picket line. D The report entitled The Economic Case Against ru closures was prepared by Andrew Glyn for the Not Mineworkers.
Glyn draws on the Coal Board's own figures for each individual pit during the period prior to the overtime ban. ings made closure would be outweighed by the resulting costs of keep ing the workers affected on the dole For example, CortonWOOd subsidy of £74 per miner colliery requires each week the government. But to close it would incur costs and loss of revenue of £295 per miner each week.
'So closing the called "unprofitable whilst perfectly