Never Having Seen the Sun
A Short Story
The tower stands still; a ghost-like figure on the hill, a monument to the past. The wheel no longer turns; the coal wagons are left standing in a row still and rusting like the men that used to push them.
We met in the Old Bull and Bush. A pub we had drunk in during the Great strike. Whenever miners and supporters came to the support group meetings in the union club we would go there after for some beers and some laughs and lengthy debates about politics. So, it seemed the right place to meet up again. She was in town to do a talk…25 years after the strike. There was to be a showing of a documentary then various veterans of the dispute would chat. I was going to the meeting but wanted to have a more personal meet-up.
I felt a bit embarrassed that we hadn’t seen each other for such a long time; felt I had let her down somewhat. But after the strike ended lots of friends never saw each other again. We all went in different directions; all followed different paths.
I got a beer and sat in a corner booth. After five minutes I saw her come in. Still had a perm and now was wearing some blue stylish glasses. She looked well. We hugged closely, for a long time, we didn’t speak for a while, we just smiled and wiped our eyes.
We had a few drinks and a quick chat about her family and mine and then I followed her in to hear her talk.
After a few celebs, she took to the stage.
‘We walked back to work with our men, with our heads held high. We had lost the dispute but we felt like not the battle. We knew now that our battle was for life.
Most of us women would never go back to how things were, I mean some did, became the same put upon housewives they had been before but a lot of us could never go back.
And I think our husbands had changed too. They respected us more now, for what we did at home with the kids and keeping the house but also for the things we had done in the strike. We had formed food kitchens, we went on pickets, we collected money and toys for the kids, we made sure everyone was taken care of, the old people in need of a bucket or two of coal, the mum feeling depressed.
And then we grew. We wrote poetry, we put on plays, we sang, we drew. We provided outlets for women that had never been there before. Don’t get me wrong, the main thing was that we supported our men in their fight, against Thatcher and the state.
To them we were the enemy, on TV at night I saw me portrayed as an evil communist, a scourge on the nation. But I was just an ordinary working-class woman, my man an ordinary hard-working man. What we wanted was to be able to work and keep our communities.
I had never thought about politics before, never watched the news, but during the strike I realised that everything was politics, our whole lives were political. We met other women from different class backgrounds, women involved in Women’s rights, CND and solidarity campaigns for other women, struggling around the world.
And we learned a lot from these women.
We went to support the women camped out at the American bases; we collected money for Women in Nicaragua fighting for a new society. We went to meetings and listened to these women, and I think we took what they said back with us and used their inspiration to be political and active in our own right.
Our solidarity fed the strikers, got presents for Christmas for the kids; our actions got support and money for the dispute. And our actions got us beaten, and arrested and the more they did this the more determined we became.
I looked around as the hall clapped and hollered.
She took a breath, a step back and took in the applause but without a smile. She stepped forward again.
‘But our fight hasn’t ended. It never ended when the men went back to work. Eventually, the pits were closed, as the union and Arthur had said they would be. And our biggest fight began.
Now, our men were on the dole, stuck at home, some days they just sat in front of the telly sinking in the mire, some days they couldn’t be bothered to dress. And some drank, in the miner's social clubs that the women kept running, the men sat and drank too much.
And our kids started to get into more trouble than usual. The conflict in the homes was toxic to the kids. They didn’t look up to their dads anymore and never listened to us. And the constant fighting between man and wife is not good for them. And suddenly drugs began to appear.
Funny that, the mines closed and heroin suddenly appeared in vast quantities, replacing the coal. Some men got other jobs, but not good jobs; driving vans, working in electronic parts factories. There were no unions and the pay was bad, but it was something.
But, the spirit had gone from most of them. Not all of them, some are still political, still keep the spirit of the union going, even if it’s just blowing their bloody trumpets!
But we women stepped up, our fight never ended; now we had our men to kick up the arse and put the pint down. Our kids to smack round the head after they smashed up a bus shelter or beat up a weak kid.
And our community centres became help centres. We set up AA meeting groups, but also we tried to provide some social activities, from practice space for would-be rock stars to the old brass bands still blowing along. And we had to get funding for these things, we had to coordinate and organise like we had during the strike…like I said our fight never ended.
And we are still political; we support any worthwhile cause, any strikers fighting for their jobs, any community fighting to survive. We got professionals in to help with isolated depressed women and men, we have raffles and sing-song nights and I think we managed to keep our community together and positive.
We women keep each other positive, we are all political and determined. The union has gone but not the spirit; it still exists in our communal activities.
But that may sound all nice and cosy-like, and maybe I have painted a bright picture when I shouldn’t have, because what we are most involved in, day to day is trying to get our kids off the gear.
Our community centres are heroin support centres. We get medical help when we can and try and keep the kids off with support. But it’s not easy…what can we offer them? No University, zero hour contract jobs in some crappy warehouse, not much of a future.
They look at their dads drinking themselves to death and do the same with heroin. Maybe our work can inspire them, it inspires other women we know, but the men; it’s harder.
We need more jobs and opportunities for the kids, more college spaces, more proper jobs. And if I am asking for anything tonight, from you trade unionist, you labour supporters, you campaigners, it is this.
We need to fight for a better society, better jobs, better education, proper wages and unions. The same things we needed a hundred years ago.
We are still fighting, the miner's wives, we ask you to do the same, for the next generation and the ones to come.’
Everyone stood and cheered, she held her hand aloft in a clenched fist and we sang Coal not dole. Most of us took the pieces of paper with the words on; we had forgotten a lot of them.
‘What will become of this pit yard where men once trampled faces hard?’
The tears ran down my cheeks.
‘So tired and weary their shift done, never having seen the sun.’
Nick Gerrard
