Distant Voices by John Pilger Page A

Forest’ took his seat in the unelected upper chamber. Before departing for the Lords, Murray had called for an attitude of ‘reality’ from the miners, as had Margaret Thatcher. Such a spectacle of ritual betrayal caused an embarrassed silence among the men I was with. Either they were too incredulous, too exhausted or too generous to say what was in their minds. ‘There goes Len,’ said one of them finally.
    Today, yellow street lamps illuminate the town’s dead heart. When the pit was closed in December 1991 it was levelled, leaving one listed building like a monument set in gravel. Even the swimming pool which the miners built, the only Olympic-sized pool on the coalfields, was demolished; the council didn’t have the money to take it over. Tom Parry was the last man out. ‘It was a Friday at about three in the afternoon,’ he said. ‘As I left, Mr Thomas the demolitionexpert blew up our workshops. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe they’d take away not just our jobs, but the lives we’d given to it.’
    The closing of Murton Colliery followed a murky campaign that is not untypical of British Coal, whose incentive to destroy and prepare for privatisation has swept aside all vestiges of the old paternalism. A divisive ‘review procedure’ offering redundancy ‘sweeteners’ led to the interrogation of individual miners and a threat to withdraw bonuses and overtime, which represent up to 50 per cent of miners’ pay. ‘Look at what’s happened in Germany,’ said Dave Temple, who was secretary of the mechanics. ‘Murton is twinned with Baersweiller. When the pit closes there the men will have had five years’ notice, retraining and guarantees of new jobs. The town has been given grants for new industry. We’ve none of that.’
    Murton’s biggest employer now is the Co-op, employing women on a part-time basis: a microcosm of the post-modernist nation. Then there is the bakery. Then nothing. Unemployment is around 30 per cent. Emmanuel Shinwell, the Minister for Fuel and Power in the Attlee Government, openly discouraged post-war industry from going into the coalfields, and ‘providing warm factories’, so that the men would have no choice but to work in the mines. Ask why miners do it and there is part of your answer.
    Youth unemployment in all the pit villages is up to 80 per cent. For them, the denial of choice is explicit. Wheel clamps in the streets indicate the rise of youth crime. Teenage pregnancies are more numerous than ever, it seems. Of all the subjects that provoke anger here, ‘youth training schemes’ lead the list. Dave Temple’s daughter, Corina, was one of 50 on a scheme farmed out to a private agency. She is the only one to have found a job: as an audio-typist. The agency was not pleased. Her qualifications, her character and the health and safety conditions of the office of her future employer were questioned. Only when she demanded to be released, and threatened to take it further, was she allowed to take the job. Private agencies lose a substantial subsidy when theylose a ‘trainee’. The more unemployed youngsters, the greater the profit.
    Most of the Murton miners were transferred to Easington pit. Their brief sense of security ended with Heseltine’s announcement last October. One British Coal executive broke ranks. Ian Day, the area production manager, wrote to the
Sunderland Echo
, describing the Government’s action as ‘criminal . . . To talk now about measures to help the mining areas affected, to attract new jobs, is unbelievable. What new jobs and when? How can anyone replace 4,500 jobs in the north-east overnight?’ 43
    In the north-east most local authorities have their own ‘development unit’. Government policy has forced them to compete with their neighbours, no matter how close and common their interests. What