Phil, so was there a village called Saltley, or was it part of Birmingham? The battle of Saltley Gate was only recent and already it's not known about by lots of people, including me - or at least only muddled knowledge. The history lessons are very interesting anyway, keep giving them Phil!
sueb
It seems that I don't know that much either, getting my PM's mixed like that. There is no doubt that the later dispute with the NUM in the eighties. The tactics of the government at that time used were learned from that dispute. If it interests you here is a copy of a report from the Guardian that mention both disputes and might give you an insight.
Twelve years before, in the so-called Battle of Saltley Gate, another picket of a coke works had helped to bring down Edward Heath's Conservative government - and made a hero of the National Union of Miners' Arthur Scargill. In 1984, Margaret Thatcher's ministers were adamant that there would not be a repetition of that outcome, and implicitly gave the securocrats carte blanche when it came to the policing of Orgreave.
On June 18 1984, after weeks of picketing, some 5,000 miners and supporters turned up at 8am outside the coking plant to protest at the "scab" labour and coal lorries passing through the South Yorkshire site. A few missiles and bricks were thrown. The police commander at Orgreave, assistant chief constable Anthony Clement, responded by sending in the mounted police. It was a serious overreaction and the miners' mood quickly turned violent.
When the pickets countered with a second push, Clement ordered another mounted advance and demanded that the pickets disperse. They refused and Clement unleashed a third advance, backed up by short-shield snatch squads. Known as Police Support Units (PSUs), these were a new development on the British mainland. An aggressive, consciously offensive form of policing, they were developed out of the Toxteth and Brixton riots of 1981 and modelled on some of the colonial riot tactics used by the Hong Kong police force. As the mounted police cantered out, the PSUs followed in their wake, delivering baton beatings to the unarmed miners.
Events did not end there. As a majority of miners headed off to Orgreave village for a drink, the police sweltered in the sun. Those miners still picketing the plant played football and goaded the police lines. As the hours passed, the police became increasingly frustrated. Now it was no longer about keeping Orgreave open; the police wanted it out with the miners.
Massively outnumbering the pickets, they started banging their shields with truncheons. Then came the PSUs. Then came the cavalry. Then came the charge. As miners fled the field, across railway lines and into the village, the police closed in. Miners were beaten on the field as they lay. But when the cavalry entered Orgreave village, they came under renewed attack from scrap-metal missiles. Clement's response was extraordinary: he ordered a mounted police canter through this small Yorkshire village. An out-of-control police force now charged pickets and onlookers alike on terraced, British streets. The full brutality of the police (Scargill himself had been injured by the end of the day) was only revealed later as prosecution after prosecution of "rioting" miners was thrown out. Instead, the South Yorkshire police force ended up with a huge compensation bill.
To many, Orgreave remains a symbol of resistance to Thatcherism's attempt to crush not only the miners' strike, but with it a culture and a community diametrically opposed to 1980s Conservatism. (The coking plant itself was later shut down and demolished.) As one reader puts it, the strike was a "struggle for a livelihood, for jobs, and even for the identity of communities devastated by political decisions to close pits without thought for the lives affected. The poverty, deprivation and oppression were terrible. Yet the bravery of the men, women and children in those communities is almost forgotten, the struggle has all but been erased from memory."
Orgreave has not been wholly forgotten. In 2001, a filmed re-enactment of the battle took place (only adding to its medieval feel) under the direction of conceptual artist Jeremy Deller and film-maker Mike Figgis. There is also a small plaque at the site. But readers feel that more must be done. Some have suggested an exhibition at the Beamish Industrial Museum, others, more detailed signage and interpretation at Orgreave itself. Clearly, this is a fraught element of our radical past that demands a fuller restoration.
I have no doubt at one time Saltley was a seperate village like at lot of others places. There is a good chance that it could have belonged to Staffordshire at one time. As Birmingham expanded during the industrial revolution like a lot of outlying places it was swallowed up. I will see what history I can come up with.
Phil