YP Letters: If only Gormley had been in charge of miners

WE hear a lot about the Battle of Orgreave during the Miners’ Strike and how the truth must come out.

Well, I do hope that the truth will come out and that the police will get justice, at last, for the wrong done to their image during this dreadful period of Yorkshire history.

What most people conveniently forget is that there was no ballot asking miners if they wished to strike or not. Arthur Scargill called for an all-out strike and the older members of the NUM came out on strike. There were many younger colliers with wives and young families who couldn’t afford to strike and refused to do so. Don’t forget, as an unofficial strike, there was no strike pay.

Determined to bring down the Government, Mr Scargill brought in “flying pickets” from all over the country – louts with no jobs of their own, just ready to make trouble at someone else’s expense.

The police found themselves trying to protect the busloads of working miners. Many of the policemen would have been born from mining families and had sympathy for both arguments.

Had the previous NUM leader Joe Gormley still been in charge, the strike would never have happened and there would be no nasty innuendos about police brutality.