No British miners’ tears for Thatcher

This 17 April 2013 video from Britain says about itself:

Mining village ‘celebrates’ Margaret Thatcher’s funeral

The funeral of Baroness Thatcher has been marked by residents of a village scarred by pit closures. Banners and bunting were hung in Goldthorpe, South Yorkshire, in protest at her policies, as mourners gathered for the funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral.

A horse-drawn, open coffin housing an effigy of the ex-prime minister was paraded through the village.

Heather Hopwood, landlady of the Rusty Dudley, in Goldthorpe, near Barnsley, said the village had “died” since the pit closure in 1994. She said: “It was a brilliant community, it was really busy, but now everything has gone dead because no-one has got any money, there’s no jobs.”

The effigy was put up outside the Union Jack social club with signs reading: “Thatcher the milk snatcher” and “Thatcher the scab”. One property in the town displayed a huge sign saying: “The Lady’s not for turning but tonight she’ll be for burning.”

Outside the Rusty Dudley, homemade banners were erected saying: “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, Thatcher’s Britain has gone bust” and “That’s another fine mess you’ve got us into Maggie”.

By Peter Lazenby at Easington Colliery in England:

Mining community remembers legacy of Thatcher

Wednesday 17 April 2013

In death, as in life, Margaret Thatcher left Britain divided today as working-class communities gathered for huge parties to celebrate her passing while a rag-bag of royals, political and business leaders arrived in London to mourn her death.

One of the biggest parties marking Thatcher’s death was held at Easington Colliery in County Durham, where former miners held a seven-hour gathering.

Easington Colliery was the last pit to close in the once-mighty Durham coalfield.

A commemoration to mark the 20th anniversary of its closure in April 1993, had been planned for months. Thatcher’s death brought an added incentive for the party in the community’s local club were prices were cut for the celebrations to a pound a pint.

Miners also arrived at Easington from Yorkshire, some wearing the distinctive yellow and black “COAL NOT DOLE” stickers worn in the 1984-85 strike.

Dave Douglass, who worked at Doncaster coalfield for 35 years, said he was there to mourn her birth as “she represented the system that we are all still suffering under.

“I’m also here to commemorate the loss of this pit and every pit in Great Britain,” he said.

“I have been watching so much psychotic drivel on the news this morning talking about the names of each horse in the funeral.

“It’s the kind of stage-managed stuff we see in North Korea.”

Former mining communities in Yorkshire were also at the heart of celebrations.

At one event rockets with images of Thatcher pasted on to them were ignited and soared skywards, exploding in bursts of colour.

At Dodworth outside Doncaster, where the pit once provided more than 1,000 jobs and was the economic bedrock of the community, celebrations lasted all day, culminating in an evening concert.

Former miners at south Elmsall in West Yorkshire booked a local hotel for a party, laying on a free buffet to all who joined in.

And National Union of Mineworkers Yorkshire area chairman Chris Skidmore took part in celebrations at Higham, near Doncaster.

“I worked at Bullcliffe Wood, one of the six pits on the original hit-list before the strike,” he said.

“People remember Cortonwood – but Bullcliffe was one as well.

“The lads always said we’d have a toast with champagne when she went.”

Scottish miners celebrate Thatcher’s funeral with whisky and morbid jokes. Wreaths are laid at memorial to dead pitmen at Monktonhall as one sacked miner says: ‘She destroyed Scotland’: here.

Thatcher’s funeral: Pomp in the service of political reaction: here.

Related articles

• Lady Thatcher’s funeral: no tears at Easington colliery (guardian.co.uk)
• Banners unfurled at ‘party’ to mark Baroness Thatcher’s funeral (hartlepoolmail.co.uk)
• Lady Thatcher’s expensive militarist funeral (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Ex-miners mark death of Thatcher (standard.co.uk)
• Where the pits closed, but the wounds haven’t (independent.co.uk)
• Margaret Thatcher dead: Durham miners to hold funeral party and ‘celebrate end of an era’ (mirror.co.uk)
• Former miners turn out to celebrate the death of Margaret Thatcher (telegraph.co.uk)
• Margaret Thatcher funeral: Former miners raise a glass to toast the death of loathed former Prime Minister (dailyrecord.co.uk)
• VIDEO: Hundreds at social club’s Thatcher ‘party’ in Easington (hartlepoolmail.co.uk)

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