Still, such difficulties and dangers were accepted as a part of generations’ old daily life and unemployment was seen as something absolutely nobody wanted, me included.
When it was announced that 20 uneconomic pits in Yorkshire were scheduled to close on 5 March 1984, Arthur Scargill pushed for militant action and ballots were held pit by pit to vote for yet another strike. I have yet to discover why he didn’t push for a national ballot as he did in the 1970’s. Maybe he thought that the support for potential closures and the threat to the NUM was so strong that he could prove it by allowing a visibly democratic vote. Whatever his thinking was, he had not factored in the Nottinghamshire mining communities and their unilateral views. On the fateful day I waited with bated breath, terrified of the thought of job losses, while unable to avoid the feeling that it was both justified and entirely reasonable and the NUM had seriously overestimated its power.