I never particularly wanted to write about the 1984-85 strike. I wasn't there. However when an idea comes, it has to be written down and the first poem triggered a sequence of four pieces in different styles.
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| Pencil sketch of the picket line 1985 (J.E. Fellows) |
Brother
Brother do you remember
the childhood we shared?
In our two-up two-down terrace;
our dad, tapping out his pipe and
mam, making chips for tea.
I loved you, brother;
your cheeky smile and hair
never in control
until mam, with a spit and a polish,
would sort you out.
Cricket in the street -
box for stumps, broken bat
recovered from the bin
at the village club but
dad fixed it for us.
Although you were younger
You were better than me;
it evened us out so I didn't
have to let you win
although I would have;
I was your protector.
We were hopeless at school
regularly caned though
it never made no odds.
So at 16, down the pit,
you followed me and dad.
Ten years passed, hard work done,
but the laughs we had, the jokes
and drunken nights at the club.
Brothers in life and
brothers in coal,
red in blood and red in soul.
No longer sharing a bedroom;
we had our own kids and homes.
I barely remember a bad
word between us,
we were best mates and Best Men.
In my mind, clear as day,
that moment when the Union man
told us it was on.
He was so confident that we'd win and
We would take 'em down again
And that was us too,
both of us, for weeks and months.
Squashed in cars, making sure
we kept the scabs at bay.
Then, one day, when I came
to pick up you up you said,
"I'm not coming today"
I knew straightaway that
Something was wrong
You wouldn't look me
in the eye. Sarah, standing
in the hall, arms round the kids.
I said "OK" and went alone.
Day by day my suspicion grew.
I've been punched a few times
but never has it hurt as much
as when they told me
you'd gone back.
They told me, not you.
I'd have killed you
if mam hadn't been there.
God knows what it would've done
to dad if he'd been alive.
You were a blackleg, a
scab.
On the picket line, shouting
"You fucking traitors" at the Judas Bus
through a sea of helmets.
That brief moment I saw you;
trying to hide your face.
I never cry, but I cried that night.
Brother, you've been dead to me
for thirty years,
the childhood bond
was smashed apart.
Those memories must be false
because I have no brother.
Brother - Part 2
Time for a coffee, thought Dave as he set the backup script running. He was pretty pleased with that modification - it was efficient and elegant. At least it should be; the proof of that particular pudding would be waiting for him when he got back from the kitchen with his latte. He contemplated his Star Wars slippers as he padded through the hall - a gift from his grandchildren, who he would be taking to the new film in a few days. That took him right back to his schooldays - his crush on Carrie Fisher and the disappointment when it was revealed that the Princess was Luke's sister. That's not a spoiler is it, after 40 years? Some people at work had never seen it. Unbelievable. He always wanted to be Luke, not Han Solo, hence the disappointment. His teenage fantasies involved a rewriting of the script in his favour but even so his teenage self would have been devastated with the outcome of the recent reboot. His brother was more like Han Solo than him - damn it, there he was again. Always in his head somewhere.
Good and evil - the Force, the Dark Side. No shades of grey there - you were either Darth Vader or Obi Wan.
Back to his desk with its padded chair - he peered at the screen through his reading glasses that reminded him about his ageing body. He was older than his dad had been when he died - a massive heart attack before he was 50. That was a terrible time - the first time that real life had really come crashing into his world. Even the fact that his backup script had worked was little consolation for that memory and he had to blink a little and refocus on the screen, and the three new emails that had arrived, to prevent his mind replaying the image of his mother lying on her bed screaming soundlessly into her pillow.
He thought he'd successfully dispatched the memories to his archive like old data from one of his databases but something was, unbidden, performing a query that was retrieving them. He'd been hacked by his own subconscious. Everything about his family and his previous life had been packaged and put away after he'd left with Sarah and the kids to start their new life. He had absolutely no idea what to do - he'd only ever known the pit and had left school with no useful qualifications. Not because he was thick, but because it wasn't the thing to do. You left school on Friday, you went down the pit on Monday - you didn't need O Levels or even CSEs down there. He'd worked hard - it made it easier that he was fit and strong - and he'd enjoyed the camaraderie and banter at work and in the pub. It was different where he worked now - everyone was nice most of the time but they were colleagues, not mates. He hardly ever saw any of them outside the walls of the building they worked in. His friends were mainly Sarah's friends or the lads at the photography club - he'd even drifted away from the cricket club where he'd once been a regular first teamer. He hadn't really fitted in there but they tolerated him because he was good. His nickname was "Boycott" - not very original but he was the only Yorkshireman in the team and the name was ironic because he batted nothing like Sir Geoffrey.
After he'd dealt with a couple of the emails he smiled at the third - it was confirmation of the results of his recent Performance Review which he'd passed with flying colours, again. "David works very hard" his boss had written. Hilarious - that guy didn't have a clue what hard work was. "I'd love to see him do a week or two on the face and then get reviewed by a Deputy", he thought, "Big, soft, sack of.." - the doorbell rang and Dave went to answer it. An Amazon delivery for his wife - he didn't bother opening it. Being in for deliveries was one of the advantages of his one day a week working at home - not only did he avoid the commute each way but he did get more of the tricky stuff done and he could work in his pyjamas until 11am. "Work at home? That's what women do!!" - his father's imagined voice and the lads' laughter that followed was clear in his head. Different times indeed.
This recent tendency to drift back to the old days was disconcerting Dave. It has reached a bit of a crisis point just last week when he had had a very vivid dream from which he had woken up sweating and gasping for breath. It had made him a bit distracted for the rest of the day but he hadn't told Sarah what it was about because she'd had just have told him not to be daft.
He'd been riding in the bus - on an aisle seat as usual - and was staring straight ahead as they made their way up the lane. He felt sick in his stomach - he knew it wasn't just fear because he'd had a bit of that when he'd faced that Yorkshire first team bowler on a dodgy pitch when he was 18. Still got 23 before he'd fended one off to gully. He could hear the singing and shouting now over the sound of the bus's engine, getting louder and louder. As they reached the gates he could hear the chants - "Scabs!, scabs!" and individual shouts of abuse from behind the protective ranks of police. He couldn't resist turning his head to look through the caged windows that were being pelted by missiles - and there was Tony, his brother, looking directly at him with hatred in his eyes. Suddenly the bus jolted to a stop and started rocking. Rocking faster and faster until, from a great roar from outside, it was over on its side and pickets were streaming in through the door, which was now the top of the bus, and were tearing the metal covers from the windows, smashing the glass and... then he woke up in a right state. Some of that happened for sure, but not that last bit. What was wrong with him? It was years ago now.
Sarah always went out for the day with her friends when Dave worked from home - they went shopping, did some craft classes and went to one of their houses on rotation for long chats, a few glasses of wine and maybe a film on Netflix. It was pretty good now she'd been able to retire - Dave was getting a very nice salary after his promotion. Those days when they had no food seemed like a dream now. A nightmare. Something that, for some reason, seemed to be affecting her husband at the moment. Sarah had always been the strong decision maker - she'd never wanted the strike to happen and hated every minute of the time he was out. She'd had a part-time job that was keeping them from the worst of the deprivation caused by Dave not being paid but in the end she'd told him she was leaving and going to stay with her auntie in Lincoln if he didn't go back. He'd pleaded with her to hang on - it would be all over soon, he'd told her. The final straw came in November, after eight months, when they'd got no money with Christmas coming up and there was no backing from the other Unions. He told her early one morning when he'd got ready to go back - she had to admit at that point she had a moment of regret that she'd pressured him. He looked sick but she knew he was brave and would do it for her and the kids. He'd warned her what would happen and she was ready - ready to get out of this place and go somewhere else. Life would never be the same again.
It was Saturday morning and they were due to pick up his mother from the station for one her visits - she would stay for a few days and the kids would come round with the grandkids and they would go out for the day to the zoo or something. Mum would never relax and sit down for a while - she would always make a fuss about Sarah having to do all the work and would insist on washing the pots even though they had a dishwasher. Dave had just done his weekly 5K parkrun and was feeling a lot better - his mother's arrival always gave him mild anxiety which had started increasing over the last year. He always dreaded her bringing up the whole reason why she came down to them and they never went to see her but she never did. She never mentioned Tony or his kids - Sarah had tried to open some dialogue with his mum and Tony's wife but had now given up. They were all resigned to the situation and nobody said anything. His mum was doing very well for her age and was still living independently - he imagined her house, the same house he grew up in, was spotless like it was when he left, grabbing all his stuff, throwing it in the car and driving away with Tony's advice to er... go away and never come back ringing in his ears. But one day, maybe soon, he would have to go back. To bury his mum.
It was Sarah who had saved them - a hundred miles from home and living in a small rented flat on the last of his "scab money" she had got a job and had found the advert to sign up for retraining in computer science. He had laughed when she showed him but as usual she didn't give up and he realised he had to do something other than mope about in a strange town. Within a couple of weeks he realised he actually understood this stuff and he never really looked back - ended up getting qualifications and a job as a technician, working his way up in the company, more training courses, better jobs and more money.
There was only one thing that disconcerted him through those years. People knew he was an ex-miner but nobody knew the truth of why he gave up the job. He always voted Labour before the strike and he always did afterwards - deep in his heart he couldn't forget his roots. Once when he was out with the cricket club lads one of the friends of a player had started banging on about how Thatcher was right and that the miners deserved a good kicking by the Met. Dave had waited for him outside the gents and pinned him up against the wall, leaving him in no doubt about what would happen if he ever referred to him and his family as "enemies of the state" ever again. This obviously got back to the team because not one of them mentioned it again and Dave believed they all thought he was a 100% Scargill man. He never disabused them of this and he was glad it never came up, but something inside him hated that he lived that lie.
After his mum's visit Dave had had the dream again. Not quite the same - this time the bus smashed through the pickets and police, through the gates, going quicker and quicker then falling into the shaft that was left open because the whole pit head had gone. Then he was falling, falling... My God, he thought when he had recovered, I can't keep doing this. He considered again whether to tell Sarah but decided against it - he knew she'd persuade him to let it lie but he knew he couldn't. All these years he'd used every excuse under the sun to justify what he did - Sarah's threats, the fact that the strike was never fully sanctioned, the fact that the pits would have closed anyway, all of it was just deflecting from the fact that he had broken the strike. He was responsible for his own actions - he wasn't Luke Skywalker, he was on the Dark Side. On his next Wednesday of working from home, he waved Sarah off for the day but instead of settling down to work he called in sick, got dressed, picked up his car keys, left the house and locked the door. He was putting an end to this one way or another - he was going home.
The Return (Mam's Story)
Walking home with shopping done,
Treads the old familiar route
The cold wind bites, clouds hide the sun
as she hurries past The Institute
she barely notices the trash
blowing up and down the street
the local council, starved of cash,
just like her, can't make ends meet
She scarely thought about her boys;
the sons to whom she once gave birth
the pain obscuring all the joys
of eighty years upon this earth
The loneliness of all those years
she shuts her eyes and thinks of Bill
then unbidden come the tears
the flood that breaks her iron will
As she crossed the quiet road
towards her tidy terraced house
She thought it was a little odd
that car - familiar, yet - the force
that hit her when she recognised
its number plate and the man
who from the seat began to rise
to greet her with "Hello mam"
And as he took her by the hand
she suddenly felt very old
what was it that he had planned?
"Let's get inside, out of the cold"
She makes some tea as he reviews
the photos on the mantelpiece
two boys in their shiny school shoes
their dad, who looked so ill at ease
At the kitchen table, sipping tea,
she sat as his words came pouring out,
the regrets, mistakes, his apologies
- it was sincere, there was no doubt
All she could say, when he was done -
it hurt though it was surely true -
was "Go home David, go home son,
There's nowt here any more for you"
The Funeral
There wasn't any more that we could say
to heal the wounds; to bond and unify
There's never a return to yesterday
I see the slaglands where we used to play
now full of life as time rolls gently by
There wasn't any more that we could say
There's rules you break you must not disobey
and no-one ever thinks to answer why
there's never a return to yesterday
As cold, grey skies help carry her away
he looks at me but I can't meet his eye
There wasn't any more that we could say
I know she would have wanted us to stay
to make amends, at least to pacify
There's never a return to yesterday
It's best that we just quietly slip away
He won't want us to ever see him cry
There wasn't any more that we could say
There's never a return to yesterday
(c) Tim Fellows 2017-2018
