Sing Like You Know the Words (20 page)

Jack leaned forward and spoke
quietly.

-My brother in law used to say
that a lot of what we hear about days lost to strikes is rubbish.
He said that when his company had produced more cars than they knew
what to do with, management would get the men out on strike. It was
easy enough to do, he said. They just had to pick on someone or
mess about with the shift patterns. Within a week there’d be a
dispute and then the union would have to back its members. Then you
had a stoppage and no need to pay the men who are on strike. It was
a good way of saving money, he said.

-Your brother in law was a shop
steward I suppose, said Bill.

-No, he worked in personnel at
Dagenham. For the mighty Ford Corporation, as he liked to say. Bit
of a shit, he was, to be honest.

Bill snorted dismissively.

-That’s all very well, but once
we get rid of strikes and tame the unions, Britain will start to be
a world leader of industry again, like when we were boys. Exporting
to every country: finest products in the world. Best steel, best
ships, best engines. You’ll see it happen. Productivity is the
key.

-But Bill, if there’s more
productivity around, how does it help me, the young man asked.

-Well if productivity goes up,
the company you work for makes more money, and so you benefit, Bill
explained.

It seemed that the boy’s
questions were beginning to exasperate him.

-How?

-Well you’ll have a bloody job
for a start.

-But if everyone is working
harder, won’t they need less people to do the work?

-It’s not like that at all. You
and me have to work hard because we’re down the road if we don’t.
But if you’re in a union, you can just show up and they have to pay
you whether you graft or just sit on your arse all day.

-Mining isn’t an easy job, Jack
observed.

-Granted, said Bill. It’s not
easy, but it’s nowhere near as hard as it once was.

-I’m still confused, the young
man admitted.

Bill sighed, but he was not
ready to give up and leave his young friend in a state of
ignorance.

-Give me strength, he said.
Where’s the tea service on this train? Look; say you are in a
union, and they decide you should go on strike: you have to do it.
It’s the rules. And then, no money for you when you’re not
working.

-I couldn’t do that. Me and
Julie just bought our house from the council, and there’s a kid on
the way. I got a mortgage

-And you got the house cheap
didn’t you, thanks to Maggie? Bill’s smile was encouraging.

-Which is fine, except they
aren’t building any new homes to rent to the young ones that come
after him, Jack observed. That’s how come we have to come two
hundred miles down the line at the start of every week to find
work.

-There won’t be no more need for
council housing in the future, Bill told him. Everyone will be able
to buy their own house, once the building trade gets back on its
feet.

-No, I wouldn’t be able to go on
strike, the young man repeated. Couldn’t afford it.

His point finally won, Bill
turned triumphantly to Jack.

-And you know what’s coming, he
said. Like it or not. It’s might be all talk at the moment. Whether
the law should say this, that or the other. That’s all a load of
crap. You know it will be the government against the miners, and
all out scrap. She won’t back down, not her. Not if it means
closing every pit in England, and leaving all the coal under the
ground forever. We’re in for a right old battle.

He was smiling. Matthew looked
again at the battered copy of the “Sun” that lay flat under his
huge palm.

Two days later the man from
London phoned to tell Matthew that the job was his. Matthew thanked
him, but said that after thinking it over, he’d decided to stay
with the Examiner for the time being. He said the time wasn’t right
for him and they talked briefly about if he should change his mind
later, but Matthew was sure that they both understood that he was
turning down a chance that wouldn´t be offered twice.

***

So in March 1984 Matthew James
was still working as a junior reporter for the Examiner. On bad
days, he already he felt like he’d squandered his one shot at life.
He´d had the opportunity to make his way in the wide world, and the
more he thought about it, the more it seemed to him that cowardice
rather than principle had made him stay curled up in his little
provincial life. But then, if Matthew had run away from the
national news, it seemed that the news was about to seek him
out.

The miner’s strike had started,
as everyone had known it would. There were almost two hundred
thousand men employed in the pits and most of them had downed
tools. When it had happened before, the country had ground to a
halt, and the government had fallen. But this time would be
different. The miners themselves knew that they had walked into a
trap, and that the government was determined to break their power
for good. It was no time for striking: spring, with warm weather on
the way, and the coal stocks high. Power stations would continue to
supply electricity for months, so long as the coal that was already
above ground could be delivered to them.

The union leaders had been left
with no choice. The bosses had announced that twenty pits must
close and twenty thousand jobs would go. It was a declaration of
war and there was no line of honourable retreat. The union would
have to rely on solidarity and help from other workers to prevent
the movement of coal. But already all the unions had been battered
by legal attacks, and the resolve of its own members in some
regions had been softened by offers of local concessions.

The country anticipated an epic
struggle, of historic significance, and as such it was a story that
the Examiner would normally ignore. Its circulation base was
geographic, rather than political, and on such a polarized issue it
was certain that any comment reflecting the views of one section of
its readership would be hugely offensive to another. All the same,
it wasn’t easy for the paper to pretend that nothing reportable was
occurring, because many of the coal mines and storage depots were
located in its heartland, and it was clear that these sites would
be the battlefields of the dispute, in a literal sense.

Still, most of the paper´s
readership lived in a city which had no working pits of its own
left, even if it was in the heart of a mining region. In the
streets, nothing was different apart from the bills posted on walls
by fringe socialist groups and the men and women standing on
corners and outside pubs with buckets, collecting for the families
and asking for support. They would rattle the bucket and a
supporter would drop some money in and the man or woman would grin,
and maybe wish on Margaret Thatcher the same slow and painful death
she was trying to inflict on the coalfields, and the citizen would
smile and agree, and go about his business.

But for Matthew the sense of
history taking place on his doorstep was accompanied by an
uncomfortable feeling of obligation to be part of it in some way.
He couldn’t believe it when word came through of the confrontation
that was looming in the south of the county, and Richard told him
that there were no plans for them to cover the story.

Police lines will be that thick,
you wouldn’t get within a mile of the place, press pass or no, he
said.

-Ralph turned and winked at
Matthew.

-Not that he’s scared to go of
course.

-I’m scared, do I look daft? It
will be carnage.

-Would you go, Ralph? asked
Matthew.

-Young Matthew, you have a lot
to learn. Any journalist worthy of the name would put the pursuit
of the truth, wherever it may lie, above considerations of personal
safety. On the other hand, there seems to be a reasonable chance of
getting your head kicked in, as they like to say around these
parts, and it would be pointless.

-Pointless? What does he mean
Richard?

-He means lad, that you could
risk life and limb and bring us a great story back and no one would
print it. It’s a subject that is a little bit controversial for
us.

Ralph nodded.

-And I might add Richard, that
some of the facts as young Matt would see them, might not accord
with the settled opinions of our employers.

Matthew tended to defer to his
experienced colleagues, but now he was outraged.

-Controversy is what a newspaper
is for. Our readers must be sick of hearing about garden fetes and
round table meetings. I’m not talking about a political essay. I
just think we should give them the facts; what they could see with
their own eyes if they were there.

Ralph smiled.

-Ah, Richard. Simple facts,
simple truths. It makes me long to be young again. If only facts
were not impotent in the face of what people prefer to believe.

-Shut up Ralph. Er, you are
right Matt, independence and objectivity. Vital for a good
reporter. That’s the proper spirit and we can use it. This week for
example, sports reporting, you need some of that in your CV. How
about this Saturday. The once mighty Leeds United face Chelsea, at
Elland Road, and frankly Eddie’s lads haven’t a chance. There’ll be
more action off the field than on it. What do you say?

-A bit nervous about that one
too, Richard?

-Shut up Ralph

Matthew had no interest in
football, or even in football violence, He decided to cover the
miners’ dispute instead, on his own initiative. No one else from
the paper was going to do it, not even the staff photographer who
was supposed to accompany him. Richard was right though; he
couldn’t get near the place. He drove round the area in his
battered, ancient car, being turned back at successive checkpoints
by policemen who looked more than ready to dispense summary justice
if he should choose to object.

He retraced his route, looking
for a way through. All the villages and unfamiliar roads began to
merge in his mind. He drove without a plan, only trying to get
closer to whatever might be happening. He kept hearing tantalising
fragments of sound; shouting, cheering, undecipherable voices
issuing from loud hailers: sounds that were unsettling but somehow
exciting.

He was crawling down an estate
road in low gear. At the back of the estate, the housing gave way
to fields. There was a railway line running across land at the top
of the road. He thought he may as well abandon the car for the
moment and see if it was possible to walk get closer to the scene
on foot.

Outside the car, the area was
strangely quiet. The shouting was distant and muffled: it reminded
him of visiting his aunt, on match days, in the little terrace
house near to the football ground. There was no one about; just a
kid playing in an old pedal kart in one of the gardens. It was a
street something like the one he grew up in. He imagined net
curtains in the front rooms twitching. Were the people frightened
to come out, he wondered?

A few moments later, the street
was filled with sounds of shouting, and men, began running into the
lane from the adjacent open ground. Wild eyed men, yelling
incoherently, some with clothing ripped, others bleeding, some
stopping to pick up bits of bricks and stones that were lying
about; hurling them at their pursuers, who seemed to be policemen.
Matthew assumed they must be police, though he thought they seemed
like a futuristic version of Viking raiders. They were bearing
round perspex shields and long batons, wearing strange helmets, and
they seemed full of fury. He saw a group of them fall upon a man
who had been picking up stones and left it too late to run. The man
went down in a flurry of boots and batons. Matthew didn’t see him
get up.

Matthew himself remained
perfectly still, as if frozen. The wave of pursued and pursuers
broke over him leaving him untouched. Some of the officers passed
close enough for him to see their faces behind the plastic visors.
They had the faces of hunters, shining with the excitement of the
chase; eyes locked on their prey.

The main body of strikers fled
up the road with the police at their heels, and Matthew lost sight
of them. A few of the miners had turned the other way, into a cul
de sac, and there they regrouped and stood their ground. Some more
police arrived, but it was clear that they were outnumbered by the
stragglers. The uniformed men hesitated, and the miners were at
them immediately. The scuffle was short and the officers began to
run in panic, back across the fields, but one or two of them were
left behind.

One of them lay in front of
Matthew, stretched on the ground. He looked more winded than
injured, as if he’d tripped while running. One of the miners
stepped over him; a big man with the left arm of his denim jacket
all but ripped off. He had longish hair, lank with sweat, and his
eyes were staring out under heavy eyebrows. He picked up a heavy
top stone from the garden wall, raised it with one arm as if it had
no weight, and dropped it onto the officer’s helmeted head. The
prone man groaned and tried to move. The miner picked up the stone,
as if he was about to drop it onto the man’s head again.

-No. Don’t.

The man looked up angrily at
Matthew’s shout. It seemed as if he would attack Matthew instead of
the officer, but Matthew couldn’t say any more: his voice seemed to
have vanished. Instead he pointed beyond the garden wall, where the
kid was still sitting in his pedal car, with his mouth open, not
moving or making any sound. The big man’s expression changed. He
seemed choked with emotion, that he had no words to express. His
body sagged. He shook his head and tossed the stone aside. Matthew
found another word.

-Why?

-You wouldn’t ask me if you’d
seen what’s going on back there. They won’t let others see it
though, only we have to see and feel it. It’s a battle. And these
bastards are her storm troopers. They’re killing us. Like Bloody
Sunday. Aye, like over in Ireland. Bastards are killing us, and
taunting us about getting paid double time for doing it.