by Kit Habianic
It took a death wish, Iwan had told him, to down tools when the bosses were organised and strong. He had figures to prove it. Figures for the millions of tonnes of coal put aside, the millions of tonnes flowing out of Polish pits, could reel off to the nearest thousand the number of UK unemployed. By the time Scrapper turned in for the night, he wanted to hack off his own ears, wished he’d not gone back into the Stute, left it to some other sorry bastard to carry the vote.
He knew better than to argue, all the same. He gave his teeth a scour, grabbed his coat and ran out after his dad. Icy wind wuthered up the High Street, shoving him backwards. He buttoned his jacket and rammed his woollen hat over his ears, cursing himself for forgetting his gloves. Despite his limping walk, Iwan was halfway down the hill. It was a struggle to catch up.
‘Where we going?’ Scrapper panted.
‘The pit, of course.’
‘What for?’
‘Are you joking, lad?’ Iwan said. ‘You reckon Blackthorn’ll stop working because you said so? You really that naïve? We need to picket. Make sure nothing and no one goes out or in.’
They walked on, steel toecaps clinking on the greasy pavement. Running footsteps rang out behind them in the darkness.
‘Orright, butties?’
It was Matt. ‘First time picketing, eh, Scrap?’
Scrapper grunted agreement. It was more than he could cope with, this early, to voice an opinion and give his dad something new to chew to death. Best to say as little as possible. At last they reached the Stute, to find a small crowd had gathered – perhaps fifty men, armed with printed placards. Coal Not Dole. Save Our Pits. Support The Miners. They looked so organised, so professional that even Iwan stopped scowling.
Dewi thrust a placard into Scrapper’s hand. ‘What kept you, fellas? High time we got cracking.’
***
It was eerie to be standing outside the pit in the dark, the gates shut, the winding gear silent. Inside the wire fence, a lump of a watchman spilled out of the tiny sentry box, opened his eyes as the men lined up outside the wire mesh, clocked the crowd and closed his eyes again. It wasn’t Dai Spy, Blackthorn’s usual night watchman, Scrapper noted, because Dai Spy stood out in the road with the rest of them.
An owl hooted in the trees. He huddled deeper inside his jacket, fixed his eyes on the road. No one spoke. Cold nibbled at his fingertips, ear lobes and nostrils. When he breathed out, his breath hung in the air. Some men were stamping their feet; others dragged on fags for warmth. After the thrill of assembling and marching down to the pit together, picketing turned out to be deadly dull. His stomach rumbled. He could slaughter a cooked breakfast, toast and all the trimmings.
A sudden noise splintered the darkness, a throat-splitting scream that raised hairs along his arms and legs. He damn near screamed himself.
‘Bloody foxes,’ Dai said.
‘They’re courting late this year,’ Dewi said.
‘That’ll be the mild winter,’ Iwan said pointedly.
‘Give over, Dad,’ Scrapper said.
Nothing moved inside the pit gates. Then, as if an alarm had sounded, the guard jerked upright. He blinked, jaws stretching a yawn. The yawn passed down the line. The guard stretched his arms, let go a loud belch and unscrewed the cap of a flask. He poured his tea, repositioned his stomach on the shelf in front of him and sparked a roll-up. As Scrapper yawned a second time, he saw a figure emerge onto the road from the tunnel beneath the railway line. The figure was short with a barrel chest. He knew who it was at once.
‘Oi-oi,’ Matt had spotted him too.
‘What happens when Captain Hook gets here?’ Scrapper said.
‘You hold him down, I smack him.’
A muscle twitched in Iwan’s cheek. ‘You will not—’
‘Matt’s taking the piss, Dad.’
‘At ease, boys,’ Dewi said. ‘How about we keep it civilised. Let me talk to him.’
Scrapper wriggled to the back of the line, the better not to confront Red’s dad. There was no point rubbing the overman’s nose in it. He willed Dewi to talk sense into Captain Hook, to persuade him to turn back up the hill and not to make things worse, for Red and for the boys and for the lodge. Dewi must have a shot, at least. Scrapper remembered Gabe Parry telling them how Captain Hook stood on the line with the rest of the boys, back in the Seventies. The younger lads laughed at the notion and Captain Hook got properly riled, yelled at Gabe to shut his trap.
Poor old Gabe.
Captain Hook advanced like a tank on a battlefield, chin raised, pace steady. He rolled right up to the line, stopped in front of Dewi, stood nose to nose with him.
‘Top o’ the morning, lads,’ he said.
A radio crackled inside the gates. The security man spoke quietly into a handset.
‘This is an official NUM picket line,’ Dewi said. ‘We expect you to honour it, Gwyn Pritchard. This leaflet,’ he thrust a flyer at Captain Hook’s clawed hand, ‘explains why we’re out, and why we’re staying out.’
Captain Hook looked at the leaflet, turned it over. For a moment, Scrapper thought he might back down. Back down and stand with the boys. Living hell for Helen and her mam if the overman stood his ground. The only thing the village despised more than a scab was the family of a scab.
Scrapper sucked in his breath, sensed the others doing the same. But Captain Hook was staring through the chicken wire at the pit. What happened next happened quickly. The guard came to the gate, keys in hand, behind him two mountains of muscle, all shoulders and no neck. The gates inched open and long arms dragged Captain Hook into the pit then the guard snapped the padlock shut again.
Captain Hook eyeballed Scrapper through the gate, smirking like a vulture eating fillet steak. ‘Care to join me, Scrapper Jones?’
He turned to Dewi, held up the flyer and ripped it into shreds. ‘That’s what I think of your reasons. Here’s how the strike’ll end. For you lot and for this pit.’
Shards of paper fluttered through the wire like dark confetti. Scrapper watched, heart in his boots, as Captain Hook stomped up the path to the canteen.
No one spoke for a while.
‘Should’ve let me smack him,’ Matt said.
‘Why bother,’ Iwan said. ‘No question he was going to cross. After all, he’s not in the lodge any more. Went skipping off to join Nacods the minute he got promoted. Fat chance we’ll get the pit bosses on side.’
‘Oi, I’m Nacods, not NUM,’ the afternoon overman Eddie Hobson said. ‘I’m stopping this side o’ the gate, no matter what. Pritchard didn’t cross cos he’s Nacods. He crossed because he’s a scab.’
The line rippled agreement.
‘Reckon Nacods’ll come out, then?’ Scrapper asked. ‘Pit deputies got as much to lose as colliers if there’s closures.’
‘Bloody hope so,’ Eddie Hobson smiled a yellow, horsey smile.
‘So what if they do?’ Iwan said. ‘What matters is the rest of the labour movement. Won’t hold my breath for Heathfield and the TUC to back us.’
Scrapper rolled his eyes. He wished his dad would stop looking for clouds in every silver lining.
‘I could kill for a nip of brandy,’ Matt rubbed his palms together.
But the cold was the least of their worries. A little car was speeding from the railway tunnel towards the pit. It zoomed closer, all metallic yellow paintwork and black go-faster stripes, buzzing like an angry insect.
‘Is Albright Nacods?’ Scrapper asked.
‘You soft in the head, kid?’ Matt said. ‘The only union our glorious leader backs is rugby union.’
The rest of the boys burst out laughing.
‘Damn right,’ Dai said. ‘An’ the only lodge’d have ’im is the freemasons.’
The pit boss’ car squealed to a halt two feet short of the line. The door snapped open and Albright leapt out.
‘Morning, boys,’ his voice was chipper.
He wore a suit the colour of a storm cloud, high-belt trews, matching jacket an
d waistcoat. A brass chain hung across his waist, dipped into a side pocket. A dashing dresser, the pit manager, but it was purely for show, that chain. It had no weight to it, Scrapper could tell. Iwan’s pocket watch was passed down four generations, had weight and heft to it. That watch would belong to Scrapper one day and after him, to his own son.
‘There’s no need for any of this,’ Albright fixed a grin to his chops. ‘No one’s closing our pit. You have my word. Come back in, boys: aren’t we better than this?’
‘We’re better’n you, you lying rat-bag,’ Dai muttered.
‘Won’t be your decision, will it, Edmund?’ Dewi said.
Albright’s cheeks clashed with his suit. ‘I have assurances,’ he said stiffly. ‘London gave me their word.’
The boys burst out laughing.
‘Ooh, London gave him their word,’ Dai mimicked Albright’s mimsy voice.
‘Fine,’ Albright snapped. ‘Have it your way.’
He stalked back to his car. Revved up the engine and inched the Ford Capri into the line. Fixed his eyes on the middle distance, as though he couldn’t hear them shouting, couldn’t feel the fists that beat down on the bonnet. He edged the nose of the car forward until the men in the middle of the line had to move or be crushed.
The gates swung open, then the guard slammed them shut again.
— 4 —
Helen sat at the kitchen table, eyes fixed on her slice of toast. Her dad was ranting at her mam again, specialist subject, the lodge. She flinched as he slammed down his stump of a fist, the better to make his point.
‘And why? To spite me, is why. It’s sabotage, pure an’ simple.’
The salt shaker fell sideways, spilling white grains. Helen licked her finger, absent-mindedly flicked salt over her shoulder, a habit learned from her mam.
‘Don’t bloody do that,’ her dad said.
‘What?’
‘That thing wi’ the salt. Superstitious claptrap.’
‘Don’t take it so personally, cariad,’ her mam said. ‘The whole coalfield’s downed tools.’
‘Don’t blame ’em,’ Helen muttered.
Her dad lurched across the table, eyes blue beams of fury. ‘I beg your pardon, missy?’
Helen bit back a yelp as her mam kicked her under the table. ‘You’ll be late for school, love.’
‘Not so fast,’ her dad said. ‘I want to know what she meant, with that smart mouth of hers. Talk back to her elders, would she?’
She didn’t blame the men for walking. Not if they were all as sick of her dad as she was. He had a rare gift for offending people. As for the strike. That was politics. Her mam reckoned politics was men’s business, said she held no truck with it and advised Helen to follow her lead.
But her dad had fixed his eyes on her face and was waiting for her to answer. ‘Fine,’ he said at last. ‘You’ll come straight home from school, young lady. It’s not safe out there now, not for either of you. You’re a fool if you think you know different.’
He pulled on his tweed jacket, shuffled into his boots and walked out, shaking the door on its hinges.
As soon as he left, her mam turned on her. ‘Shut your lip an’ stay out of it, can’t you, young lady?’
‘I’m allowed an opinion.’
Her mam made a strange choking sound. ‘It’s not you that pays for your opinions, is it?’
Helen had heard them together, as she lay in bed, willing sleep to come, heard the hissed whispers, strange thuds and sudden silence.
‘What d’you mean, Mam?’
Her mam turned away. ‘Just do me a favour, Helen Margaret Pritchard. Keep your lip buttoned and stay away from that boy.’
Her dad said it was Scrapper who talked the meeting into backing the strike. Blackthorn would have told Scargill to shove his strike, he said, but for Scrapper and his dad and the lodge rabble-rousing the men to walk. Score-settling for him suspending them both over Gabe, her dad said.
Her mam was waiting for an answer.
‘Don’t have a bloody choice, do I, seeing as I’m grounded.’
‘You keep a civil tongue in that head of yours.’
Helen pulled on her blazer, stuffed her schoolbooks in her bag and stomped off up the hill towards Bryn Tawel. The street lamps were orange eyes that watched her in the gloom. She pulled her parka tighter, walked faster. Suddenly something whizzed past her ear, passed so close that the rush of air blew her hair into her eyes.
She turned, saw an older boy from school. ‘What the fuck—’
‘You Red Pritchard?’
The boy fixed an eye on her. A fearsome squint on him, one eye wandering off to the left. But for the rock he held, a rock the size of a cricket ball, she would have laughed in his face.
‘Get stuffed.’
The boy raised his arm. ‘Your old man’s a scab, Red Pritchard. A filthy scab. You better tell him to stop; else you’ll get a whole lot more’n this.’
The rock was so heavy, travelled through the air so slowly, that dodging it was easy. Even so, she flinched as it crashed into the wall behind her and shattered into a dozen jagged shards.
‘I’ll not miss a second time,’ the lad yelled. ‘You tell that to—’
She didn’t wait to hear the rest of it, went tearing up the hill and kept running until she reached the school gates. She crossed the yard at full pelt and yanked the doors open. Shock set in then, hands and legs turned jelly and custard. She staggered towards the lockers, panting and giddy.
A knot of girls stood huddled together. When they saw her, they turned their backs and walked off to class. She sank down on a bench, her head in her hands. The bell rang. Bodies poured from corridor to classrooms. It felt good to be alone, to sit quietly for a moment. Mr Probert the English teacher hurried past, didn’t see her. After a while, she shrugged off her parka, gloves and scarf, went over to her locker. She stopped when she saw the graffiti. Written on it in thick felt-tip was the word that the boy had used.
Four letters. Scab.
— 5 —
Being an outcast felt to Helen like a too-tight corset, the laces getting tighter by the day. When the miners downed tools, everyone who worked at Blackthorn – even Debbie Power, the pit nurse, and Dolly Bowen who served the men their tea – came out too. Everyone came out, bar the pit manager and her dad. Albright lived up the valley, which left the Pritchards to face the wrath of Ystrad. No man, woman or child spoke to her dad from the day the men walked. Soon enough, the miners’ families were dishing out the silent treatment to Helen and her mam too. As though they had a say in anything her dad did. Helen learned to walk fast, and keep her head down, learned not to talk back, not to the villagers and especially not to her dad. When he said she was grounded, he meant it.
‘Don’t worry,’ her mam said. ‘It’ll all blow over soon enough. Meanwhile, we’ll live with it.’
‘Why should we bloody live with it?’
‘He’s the man of the house. What he says goes.’
At home, she tiptoed around her dad’s moods. He’d stopped drinking in the pub, came straight home from his shift, carrier bag stuffed with cans, clock-watched until she came home and God help her if she walked in late. The hissed arguments shifted from the kitchen to the living room when she turned in for the night. Doors slammed when she approached. Her dad barely spoke to her directly, addressed his complaints about That Girl to her mam. Her mam was so pale she barely cast a shadow.
At home or at school, Helen felt on show, yet set apart from other people. A sad exhibit pinned and mounted and trapped behind a case of glass. March came and went and she saw Scrapper only when he came to meet her at the school gates and walk her to the bottom of her road. He seemed distant, cool. They talked politely, like adults thrown together at a children’s party. They said nothing about their home lives or about the strike. She had no clue how to reach him.
The Saturday away game couldn’t come soon enough. Her parents knew about the match, had overheard her, weeks earlier, talki
ng about it on the phone to Bethan. Not that her so-called best friend was speaking to her these days.
Come Saturday, she skipped down the stairs, duffel bag spilling hockey kit, having faked twisting her ankle during hockey practice. Her dad looked up from The Daily Express, clocked the bag, had no questions, for once. And why wouldn’t he want the house to himself after a hard week’s strike-breaking, Helen thought sourly. He had his red tops spread across the table, looked unlikely to budge until her mam served his lunch.
She set off at a trot, ducked into the alley between the terraces. Damp posters draped the walls from top terrace to High Street. All Out For The Miners. Coal Not Dole. Scrapper and the boys had been busy. She checked no one was around, pulled out her make-up bag and set to work with mascara and lippie. As she blotted her lips, she caught a movement in the mirror. Two girls were climbing up the alley, bleach-bottle blondes with safety pins for earrings and knotty ropes for hair, one pushing a pram.
Helen knew them by sight; they were a few years ahead of her at school, although they mostly weren’t at school, part of a gang of girls who hung around outside the pub, waiting for the morning shift to pass, school skirts hoiked down to show belly-buttons, up to show legs. They’d tap the single lads for booze and fags; money too, when they could. They tapped the married ones on the quiet, so rumour had it.
The taller girl blocked the alley with the pram, planted an elbow in Helen’s ribs. ‘Don’t like scabs round yur, do we, Dawn?’
‘Scum o’ the earth, scabs,’ her friend agreed.
Helen pushed past, kept walking with slow, bluffing steps. At the bottom of the alley someone had ripped the posters away to show a scrawl of graffiti. Gwyn Pritchard = SCAB. Helen Pritchard = SLAG.
***
Scrapper was perched on the wall next to the bus shelter, bent over a book, his skin and hair gleaming in the sunshine. Seeing him made Helen feel even grubbier. But his face split a grin when he saw her. It took guts for him to meet her on the High Street, a slap in the face to those who shunned her. She hugged him, breathing in the smell of Imperial Leather that rose through his clothes.