TESTING FOR GAS (01/11/11)

      We moved onto the Derbyshire/ Nottinghamshire border yesterday. We are just outside Silverhill nature reserve which until 1992 was the site of Silverhill Colliery. I was very lucky this morning. It rained half the night and was still spitting when I set off to scale the highest hill in Nottinghamshire……..not a massive undertaking as it’s only two hundred and a few metres high.

       This sculpture by Antony Dufort is a tribute to the miners of Nottinghamshire. It was unveiled in 2005 and titled ‘Testing For Gas’. I have fallen for it. It’s cast in bronze and is about twice life size. He faces east and the lights are those of Sutton in Ashfield.

         This is not the best of images but will enlarge with a click.

      Very noisy but not much choice I’m afraid.

There was an alternative……….flash at about quarter power………I’m not sure it’s improved things.

I’ll stick with silhouettes. It was a bit chilly this morning.

I was lucky today as the mist rolled in five minutes after this shot. It’s raining again as I write this.

I get a bit upset visiting this area as during the miners strike it was like a war zone. The local miners have usually been very moderate unlike their neighbours in Yorkshire and Derbyshire who were anything but. This led to pitched battles during the 1984-1985 Miners Strike.

Silverhill picket - Dave Douglass

During a mass picket at Silverhill in Nottingham the colliery and the blacklegs were violently attacked, by the time the police arrived the pickets were already leaving, they thought we were going home, which we feigned. In truth was this was an evening hit squad raid and Harworth was the target. The blacklegs were already in their duds ready to descend on the evening shift, the pit was lightly guarded by a handful of police when the surprise invasion by hundreds of pickets swept into the village and attacked the colliery, forcing the blacklegs and police to scatter. The pit canteen and car park bore full measure of the pickets anger and a number of cars sat upside down while the local police station had been blitzed.

Of course such actions were not ‘organised’ certainly they had no official sanction from Barnsley the Yorkshire Area strike HQ. The picket co-ordinators had no idea of the previous evenings raid as they issued instructions for the morning picket target..Harworth Colliery !

By this time an army of very pissed off police was already all over the village, and the blacklegs were in foul mood too, our nerve was less than steely as we approached the village. I myself resolved to stay away from the picket line, having just got out of nick from a previous picket. It was to lead to a most embarrassing incident, with me digging a scab’s garden !

I was sitting on a garden wall, watching the day go by and had quite forgot what I was doing here, when I noticed the scab bus coming into the village. I immediately picked up a brick to persuade the pickets not to go to work and had ran toward the bus shouting persuasive words, something along the lines of "scabby bastards" as I recall. The occupants of the bus noticed me at the same time as I discovered, no it wasn't the scab bus. It was a bus full of Metropolitan Police just arrived from London and now they were pouring off the bus and pelting down the street, riot shields and clubs in hands after me. I ran and ran and unlike normally happens these buggers didn't give up and continued chasing me. I shot down a side street and there was a bloke up a ladder painting his house. I shot down the side of his house and round the back into the garden. I could still hear the police shouting "he’s gone down there, down that house" they were coming. Quick as a flash I had pulled my shirt off, picked up the garden fork and made as if I was digging the garden down by the rhubarb. Then the rhubarb rustled and a pair of feet and legs became visible, "piss off stupid get" it was another picket ! By this time they had arrived panting their clubs in hand visors down. I walked toward them, still pretending to be the house owner, trouble was I didn't really know what a Nottingham accent was like. "All-rieght" I droned in a voice I thought reminiscent of Ray Chadburn (the NUM Nottingham leader). Just then the bloke started down his ladder as the cops eyed me and the garden suspiciously. I walked up to the bloke and whispered, "I’m all right aren't I ?" "That just depends how you look at it he replied" "only I’m on afters at that pit in a minute" he was a scab ! Looking between the cops and scabs, I decided discretion was the better part of valour. "Look do you want your bliddy garden digging or don't you ?" I said.

I include this as it describes one of the lighter moments. The rest of the article is HERE. It is all over now or almost all over. It’s to be hoped we never need the coal which still lies beneath us.