Miners and Unions

During this day of coming and going I've  been listening to the last chapters of an A.J. Cronin book " The Stars look down"
 Audio  books were something of a mystery to me until a friend sent me one. I thought I'd better listen to it as it was a gift and quickly became enraptured. Since then I've bought lots of them and enjoyed them all. If read by an actor who knows his or her job they are very satisfying indeed. I have two audio books written by one friend and read by another. My Lancashire childhood comes back the moment I tune in!
A.J. Cronin now I suppose is not much read but was very popular when I was a girl. It is reading books by him and others that helped make me into the closet socialist I always was. This one is about coal mining before nationalisation and its very graphic. They way they were treated was appalling and as I had a mining grandfather and an uncle who had been locked out in the general strike it was also very personal.
It is  sad now to reflect that the mines are largely  gone. It depends on your political colour as to whether you blame Margaret Thatcher  or Arthur Scargil but I think they were both implicated. However the work was hard, dirty and dangerous and although the pit villages are mere shadows of what they once were I hope that most of the former miners have found work more to their liking.
I was talking to the verger after church this morning who told me that her branch of the family always went to the other branch for Christmas because they were miners and that's where the money was.
I suppose that was true then. They got massive respect for what they did and earned very good money but I have been down a pit. It wasn't just dark, it was hot and airless and dusty and I honestly believe that they deserved every penny because just half an hour was enough for me!
As for what they suffered from the unscrupulous owners of mines, it made me weep.
So despite all of their faults and all of their self importance I thank God for the unions.