Looking Back - Miners Victory

On this day in 1981, the Conservative government, under Mrs Thatcher, withdrew plans to close 23 coal pits, the first major u-turn since the Government came to power two years earlier. Secretary of State for Energy, David Howell, made the concession after two hours of crisis talks with Department of Trade and Industry Officials. The concession was made in the face of a threat by Unions to call a national miners strike. Mr Howell acknowledged miners concerns about coal imports and subsidies to the National Coal Board. As a result pit closures announced on 10 February were dropped. The Government agreed to reduce coal imports from eight million to five-and-a -half million tonnes over the next year. Joe Gormley, President of the National Union of Mineworkers advised members, the following morning, against a national strike involving 240,000 miners. Some left-wing pits maintained unofficial stoppages and there were pickets outside the NUM headquarters in London. These strikes were called off on 20 February. The Government provided £300m of financial assistance to the industry and prevented official strike action, although pockets of discontent remained. Joe Gormley resigned as President of the NUM in April 1982, to be replaced by left-winger Arthur Scargill. Two years later Mr Scargill led the miners in a year-long strike, the longest ever in the UK, from March 1984 when the Coal Board announced the closure of 20 pits.

Empire Day

Empire Day celebrations in Scopwick

(Click on image to enlarge)

On the 12 February I published a picture of the Royal Oak, Scopwick, thought to date back to the early 1900s, sent in by reader David Butler. The above picture was also sent in by David and probably dates somewhere between 1902 and 1916. It depicts the villagers of Scopwick celebrating Empire Day.

Empire Day

The idea of celebrating Empire Day was first considered in 1897, towards the end of Queen Victoria's reign. The purpose of Empire Day was to "remind children that they formed part of the British Empire and that they might think with others in lands across the sea, what it meant to be sons and daughters of such a glorious Empire", and that "The strength of the Empire depended upon them, and they must never forget it". Only the Victorians could come up with such a patriotic idea. In fact, the first Empire Day did not take place until 24 May 1902, the date of the Queen's birthday, and over a year after her death on 22 January 2001. Even then it was not officially recognised as an annual event until 1916, although many schools across the British Empire were celebrating it before then. One New Zealand school journal from 1910 records: "This is the 'Union Jack', and now that Empire Day has come round once more, you will hear its history. It is really a coloured picture from a history-book, telling of things that happened long before you were born". Millions of school children throughout the British Empire would salute the union flag, and sing patriotic songs like Jerusalem and God Save the Queen. They would hear stories about such heroes as Clive of India, Wolfe of Quebec and 'Chinese Gordon' of Khartoum. The children were allowed to leave school early to take part in the many marches, maypole dances, concerts and parties. In Britain an Empire Movement was formed by an Irishman, Lord Meath, the watchwords of the Movement were "Responsibility, Sympathy, Duty and Self-sacrifice. By the 1950s the Empire was in decline and in 1958 Empire Day became British Commonwealth Day and in 1966 changed again to become simply Commonwealth Day. The date was also changed to 10 June, the official birthday of the present Queen. The final change came in 1977 when the date was changed to the second Monday in March. The Queen still sends a special message to the youth of the Empire via a radio broadcast to all Commonwealth countries. In Canada, several million loyal Canadians still celebrate what is known as Victoria Day on the last Monday before 24 May.

Poem - Blankney Church

Since the late 1950s there has been a considerable drop in church attendances. Over the same period of time moral standards and respect for other people have also been in decline. I am not a religious person, but in my view this is not coincidental, one is a direct result of the other. I was mindful of this when in 1995 I wrote the following poem.

Blankney Church

Oh little church how proud you stand
Taller than the beech
Where for all these centuries past
Man has come to preach
Where man has also come to kneel
To ask forgiveness for his sins
From your tower bells would peal
And man would sing his hymns
And those who sang their praises
In loud and thunderous waves
Now lie silent at your feet
Contented in their graves
Majestic and aloof you seem
Surrounded by the yew
Your purpose now diminished
Appealing to the few
And as your congregation
Grows smaller day by day
Sadly we must face the truth
That man has lost his way

Rodney Garlant

A Good Idea? Or Just Plain Lazy

I was watching a report on the local news last night. It transpires that one Yorkshire council has taken the decision to do away with the apostrophe. They showed several shots of road signs on which the apostrophe should have appeared but had been omitted. In one instance, two signs opposite each other and bearing the same road name were shown, one with the apostrophe the other without. Personally, my punctuation is appalling, so doing away with it would save me a lot of embarrassment. Having said that, I do not believe this is the right way to go and I hope they reverse their decision. However, compared to modern day text messages, which to me seem like a foreign language, a few apostrophe's (should that one be there?) seem quite insignificant. It was while I was thinking about all this the following quotation came to mind.

The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader catch his own breath.
Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart