Today, l visited not The Museum of Cardiff, but the National Museum of Cardiff. They are not the same, as that "National" is a crucial difference! And that screwed me with Google lost for a bit! Anyway, Three was a £3 plus voluntary donation exhibition about the 83/84 miners' strike. I just about remember it, but it was a good reminder of it all. And being in South Wales, you got how it really was. There's much more to see in the museum, but I cannot stand for long, nor concentrate long, but I now think that I will go back tomorrow for the rest, as I've done the miners' strike, but the rest is free! I will come back to Cardif again, as there more to see and it is easy for me to get to
Get yourself over to Barry Island, go on the rides and get a chip butty on the way back. Brilliant day out.
I remember my Dad getting roughed up by the coppers just for taking food to relatives in South Wales during the strike. He only had one lung and had never been in trouble in his life but helping kids to have a meal was a crime to those in power. Never forgot that.
I remember David Wilkie, a taxi driver being killed by striking miners dropping a 4 foot long concrete post and a paving slab onto his car off a motorway bridge because he was driving working miners to work. There was a lot of things done by both sides during that dispute - don't forget that either..
There were, but there far more lies from one side - only look at how the BBC filmed and reported Orgreave. They still have not apologised. That said, I fail to see how someone completed unrelated doing something bad in any way balances the police beating my Dad up. He was an innocent person whose only connection to the dispute was to be trying to provide for his extended family. The Police are supposed to uphold the law. None were ever disciplined for what they did to my Dad, as an eleven year old I was not counted as a witness. The doctor who documented the injuries was turned away from the police station when he tried to give a a statement. If you see that as acceptable due to what someone else did, or even try to explain it as ‘bad on both sides’ then we will never agree. How anyone can support, or try to make excuses for corrupt Police is beyond me personally.
Who said anyone was making excuses. I simply pointed out that no one was blameless. The whole fiasco was an ego battle between the then Prime Minister and the President of the NUM. Your dad was one of many victims on both sides of the argument. You cannot remember one but ignore the others. It’s an awful part in the history of politics in the UK and will not be forgotten but we have to move forward and learn from it, which hopefully we have, otherwise we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes again ad infinitum. My grandfather was a miner as were a lot of my mates.
That's covered in the museum exhibition and not glossed over. It's a good experience and worth visiting if you happen to be in the area. Not doing Museums on Thursday but off to Penarth for no good reason. There is a Pier to see and I may take some pics on my phone
