Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Remarks to police coming off picket duty

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: York Police Station, York
Source: Yorkshire Post , 27 September 1984
Editorial comments:

1120-1215 MT met and talked with officers returning from duty policing miners’ pickets in Pontefract.

Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 190
Themes: Strikes & other union action, Law & order, 1984-85 coal strike

Police who had spent the early hours handling a picket invasion of Britain's largest colliery were praised by the Prime Minister yesterday afternoon.

“You are doing a marvelous job” , she told the policemen, who earlier had arrested 41 miners to end the occupation of winding towers at Kellingley Colliery, Pontefract.

“We are extremely grateful for what you have done, and so are the overwhelming majority of the British public” , Mrs Thatcher said as she sipped black coffee in the canteen of York Police Headquarters.

The police has been rushed to Kellingley Colliery after 53 cars, carrying about 200 strikers, had evaded security barriers at 2.45am to start the occupation—which lasted until 8.30am.

The NUM branch secretary at the pit, which employs 2,400 miners, Mr David Miller, said it had been “an occupation to make a strong visual demonstration to the Coal Board and the scabs that we can take the pit over and stop the job whenever we like” .

Six miners are working there.

The pickets forced doors to get into the pit's twin winding towers and coal preparation plant.