Miners 1984 85 Strike

A Memory of Easington Colliery.

Not long into married life we both walked into a miners strike that lasted until 1985. This was very hard having to adjust to married life and without no money because of the strike we both lost our first home. Soon after the strike started i became pregnant with my first son Graham I became pregnant with him in the strike and gave birth in the strike we struggled to buy prams and cots and other essentials for a baby With the help of my dear grand parents we came through this difficult period. Soon after the strike we went into a colliery house as we lost our first home due to not been able to pay the morgage. Both my husband and i have lived in Easington all our married life Jeff came from Easington.We met at The Easington colliery club Coming up to 26yrs ago Quite frightening really because it does not seem that long ago.
I Karen was Hairdressing at the time of the strike and worked up until i was about seven months pregnant whilst jeff went picketing just to get his £2 aday. Jeff made all the meals and done the house work to help out. He made his first Spagetti Bolanais in the strike which was very good. This seemed to be the making of him as he as always been a keen cook all our married life.I remember coming in from work tired and heavily pregnant one day to find jeff in the yard making coal with coal dust and cement he had burnt is finger ends badly he ended up with finger pokes on each finger. I suffered with morning sickness badly whilst pregnant and was late for work on many occasion my head was alway down the pot to the point i missed my bus one morning. I walked down to the next bus stop which was near the pit. The miners were picketing outside the gates the police was every where Jeffrey was their just to get his £2 he spotted me walking to the bus stop he came running over not amused as he thought being near the pit was dangerous for me especially being pregnant i could have been caught up in the angry crowd and hurt. Comming up to Christmas 1984 was difficult but we did not find this as bad as other people who already had children but it was bad for us as i only had a month to give birth to Graham. I wondered what i was going to do to have a good christmas. Both our parents were in the same boat as we were so they could not help everyone you knew was suffering at some degree. People who owned shops tried to help I can remember Mr Snowdon who owned one of the shops in the village letting people pay on tick for groceries what a kind man he was he died then his son took over the bussiness so many years down the line he sold his shop it was sad. Like so many shops in Easington bussinesses have come and gone. My Grandparents were very good to us they saw we were struggeling. They lived in Trimdon not that long away from Easington one day they came over with a big parcel they got some friend to bring them over in the car as none of us could drive back then. The parcel was a large brown box all cellotaped up my grand parents asked me to open it up. The box was a food hamper they had made themselves from teabags to jars of pickeled onions, cake mixes you name it it was in that box i was flabbergasted along with this box was a carrier bag containing a very large Chicken at first i thought it was a Turkey. My Grandads brother had a small farm in Trimdon not far from Grandad it was he who gave the chicken to Grandad who in turn gave it to me. I sat and cried for ages i could not stop. My Grandparent did not think what they did was wonderful all they thought was that they were helping their grandaughter i suppose this is what i would do for my own children. But i think they were wonderful and still think of them in this way.
That Christmas was special in some sense as it made you aware of what christmas is about it is about family been together and helping one another not about the latest craze. Everyone was in the same boat so you were not on your own if money was tight.
After that christmas on the 10th of Jan i gave birth to my First son Graham. I was in Hospital a week at Little Thorpe they closed it down just before i gave birth to my second son then Knocked the whole building down later on. I prayed the miners would get back to work soon as i had this little bundle to bring up it was a different ball game when Graham came along. Jeff was able to help with the baby taking it in turn to do the night feed . because Jeff was on strike we were able to get milk voucher for graham this was the only real help we got. My family help rally around with items like cots and blankets the social never helped their idea was jeff already had a job get back to it. The same goes for the morgage people this was why we lost our first house. Nobody had much simpathy. I was glad when the miners got back to work in March 1985.it took a while to get back on our feet we moved into a colliery house and tried to make a fresh start. I believe the Miners strike has been a solid foundation to our marriage as we have been able to cope with whatever life throws at us.