The Fifty-second Week
Monday 25 February — Sunday 3 March 1985
Terry Winters sat at the kitchen table of his three-bedroom home in the suburbs of Sheffield, South Yorkshire. His three children were squabbling again. His wife worrying. Terry ignored them. Breakfast television was showing pictures from the rally in Trafalgar Square yesterday. The final rallies in the final hours. The police put the numbers at less than fifteen thousand. One hundred arrested. Hundreds more batoned. The Union said there were between eighty and one hundred thousand. Numbers. Numbers. Numbers. Terry ignored it all. He took an index card from the right-hand pocket of his jacket. He read it. He closed his eyes –
It was blank —
Terry Winters opened his eyes. His children had gone to school. His wife to work. Terry looked down at the index card again. He put his hand into his right pocket again. He took out another card, and another, and another –
They were all blank.
Terry went back to work. Terry sat at his desk. Terry watched Ceefax all day:
Four thousand had returned to work today. Highest ever figure for a Monday. Two thousand more returnees and the Board would then have their magical 50 percent. Meanwhile, the NottinghamshireArea Council had called off the overtime ban—
Ten thousand more tonnes a week to the government stockpiles.
Terry changed channels. Terry waited for the next news:
The President and Dick on the steps of Congress House, long coats and faces. ‘When history examines this dispute,’ railed the President, ‘there will be a glaring omission — the fact that the trade union movement has been standing on the sidelines while this Union has been battered.’
Terry switched off the television. Terry waited for the telephone to ring.
*
Neil Fontaine leaves the Jew among the popped corks and the empty bottles. The party hats and the streamers. The trophies and the spoils. The winners and the victors –
Just six hundred bodies short now.
Neil Fontaine takes a cab to the Special Services Club.
Jerry finishes his cigar. Jerry pushes away the ashtray. Jerry leans forward –
‘There is a price,’ says Jerry.
Neil Fontaine nods just once. Neil Fontaine says, ‘I know.’
Jerry lifts up his napkin. Jerry pushes an envelope across the tablecloth –
Just the one thin, brown envelope.
Neil Fontaine picks it up. Neil Fontaine stands up –
‘Love will always let you down,’ says Jerry. ‘Always has and it always will.’
Neil Fontaine takes a taxi back to Bloomsbury. He walks down towards Euston. He goes into St Pancras. He sits in the pew. He bows his head. He says a prayer –
Just one last and final prayer.
*
Mardy Colliery, the very last of the Rhondda pits and forever known as Little Moscow, had voted for an orderly return to work –
The Last Waltz had begun —
‘My concern now is with holding the line,’ said Paul. ‘This is not the time to bow our heads. Not the time to go back to work defeated. This is the time to close ranks –
‘And urge our members to stand firm, to sustain us through this difficult period. Help us over this last hurdle —’
Nobody nodded. Nobody was listening –
‘There’s no prospect of victory now,’ warned Gareth Thomas from South Wales. ‘Not the kind of victory we were all so sure we could achieve a year ago in March 1984. What we must make sure of now is that we do not abuse the loyalty that has been shown to us by the thousands of miners throughout this country, and that loyalty demands –
‘Leadership. Leadership. Leadership! Or there’ll be no Union to lead!’
The leadership met. Again. For seven hours the Executive met. Again –
The Executive leadership prepared now to sign the NACODS agreement –
The leadership desperate to sign the NACODS agreement –