5th November 2025

So there will be a public inquiry into Orgreave chaired by the Bishop of Sheffield. FORTY years ago, striking miners tried to picket Orgreave coke plant (fuel not drugs!!) near Barnsley and police brought in from the whole country tried to stop them. A pitched battle ensued with arrests and trials for affray etc and accusations of police brutality.

This inquiry is not timely and not likely to lead to recommendations as the Southport inquiry will. Those involved (and still alive) will have their story firmly fixed by telling it for forty years. No emails or social media and many miners’ leaders and most of the then Government are dead.

At the time the strike had little impact on Bristol. For me it was more personal. It was Alan (up the road) and David and Tony (across the road) – neighbours and schoolmates from childhood. They were all redundant just after the strike. Alan never worked again.

The bitterness of the strike has not gone away. My friends being from Derbyshire were on strike. Those a few miles away in Nottinghamshire were not. Families were split perhaps for ever, one seen as a strike breaker by another. Calling your brother “scab” is not forgotten.

I was often at Bristol Cathedral in 1984/5. The miners and their families never got a mention in the prayers. I asked one of the canons if the families could be prayed for as that was not political, but nothing changed.

So my prayers will be for the Bishop that he can achieve some reconciliation by this inquiry and not just stir up the pot of bitterness.

Margaret Clements