Miners' strike

1. Margaret Thatcher brought over Ian MacGregor (recognised anti-union and hatchet man).

2. An official Government document detailing the proposed decimation of the UK’s mining industry was mysteriously leaked. Obviously, these fuelled emotions enough to kick-start industrial action purely as a measure of attempting to safeguard miners’ futures. Not once was the issue of money raised.

3. As for miners being nonskilled, I mention only a few I personally worked with: two are high-ranking police officers, two are health and safety managers and one is a manager in a world-leading engineering company. I myself have held supervisory positions in the microchip industry and currently the same in a precision engineering company quality department.

Could the writers of the letters transfer their skills so successfully to other industries?

I doubt it.

If the Government had invested in green coal-fired power stations, instead of bringing the country to near bankruptcy in a revenge-fuelled vendetta, maybe a lot of local economies would still be flourishing and a few thousand more people would still happily be paying their taxes.

Fred Watson, Horden, Peterlee, Co Durham.

I WAS very sad to read the letters from Joe Wellthorpe and William Fisher (HAS, Jan 13) regarding the miners.

I worked in the mines after four years in the Royal Navy. Most of my family and my wife’s family, going back many years, worked in the mines. To say they were unskilled is beyond belief.

Also, ask these two gentlemen to look at Accidents and Disasters in Coal Mines, which is in the NCB Library, in London: Glamorgan, 2,827 killed; Monmouth, 868; Lancashire, 1,541; Scotland, 800; County Durham, 984; Northumberland, 378; and there are hundreds more in counties all across England.

Raymond Sampson, Crook, Co Durham.