[entwisi]

why are you deciding what I would or wouldn't do? You simply don't know enough about me to say anything like that and I'm surprised at you for making such a remark.

was all violence started by the Police, of course not. the strike attracted and would always attract the thug minority just like the football crowds did in those days. It gave them an excuse to riot. We all watch things like Life on Mars and now 'laugh' at the seemingly non PC attitude but back then that attitude existed all over.

As for people who chose to work. faced with the choice of standing on a picket with my family starving, cold, etc or brewakinga strike that 'my' Union was making little effort to compromise would not be top of my list of things I give two hoots about.

It is common sense that in a dispute neither side will 'win' its just a matter of how much you need to sacrifice to get to a position of mutual acceptance. Scargil was out to make a name for himself on the pretence that he was doing it for his 'brothers'. Compromise was not in his vocabulary and ultimately it probably cost the mining industry more in lost employment, mines, output etc than a simple compromise up front would ever have done. Maybe the fact he came up against someone equally stubborn in Maggie was the reason this escalated so, we will never know as those times are past.