Battle of Orgreave recreated for art 18/6/01

EVAN DAVIS:
It was the showdown of the great 1984 war, the battle of Orgreave. In this small village between Rotherham and Sheffield, built around mining and a coking plant. The pickets were trying to stop coke getting out of the plant. Thousands of police outnumbered them, the scars of the beatings and strife have far from healed. And now, a re-enactment of the event. We are here to film the filming of it. It's Labour history meets the southern arts establishment. Real participants in the conflict join battle re-enactment hobbyists. The real showdown anticipated huge changes to the community here.

HAZEL PEDELTY:
There is a lot of crime, because people have got no money. There's no jobs. What are the young ones supposed to do? Hang about street corners. That's all they can do, isn't it?

DAVIS:
In the years after the battle, the coal jobs all but disappeared, just as Arthur Scargill said they would. The jobs went, and with astonishing speed. The real battle of Orgreave actually took place closer to where I am standing now. Indeed, the bridge behind me was a key point in that battle in the jostling for position between the police and the pickets. Much of the battle also took place off a road that ran up somewhere behind me. Clearly, quite a lot has changed. There is no road, the works have all gone, there is an open-cast mine, and there is a free mountain to boot. Clearly, the physical environment has changed very substantially, but what about the economic environment? With most of the coal jobs gone, how successfully has the area found life beyond coal? At this opportune moment of everyone thinking about a great event of the past, what about the future?

MARK EDGELL:
(Leader, Rotherham Borough Council)
We are standing on a site which we expect to become a basis for an advanced manufacturing technology and research location. Boeing have joined with Sheffield University, and they have said this is the place they want to move to. Also, the large Corus company have said that they want a world centre for research and development here.

DAVIS:
This is in sight of the battle re-enactment, on ground reclaimed from coal. There is some room for optimism. In this and the neighbouring council ward, the number of people on unemployment benefit is not much above 4%. The jobs that are created at a Boeing or a Corus research centre, are those jobs that ex-miners could get?

EDGELL:
We are trying to develop a diverse economy in this part of the country. We recognise that ex-coal miners and steel workers can work in modern industrial centres. They may need some training or they may have the skills already. Some of the other jobs that we are trying to develop here will attract graduates, who in the past might have gone to Leeds or Manchester, or down to London. We hope that we can hold on to them here, so they can spend their money here, and help create other jobs in other sorts of industries as well.

DAVIS:
Signs of regeneration abound. A mile from the battle scene, Sheffield's young airport. A few miles further down the road, the Meadowhall shopping centre. It's work, Jim, but not as they knew it. Coal and steel it ain't. And the old Orgreave site itself is being reclaimed, just as soon as the opencast mine project finishes. And here's a novel traffic scheme, a roundabout to mark a bend in a road. There is no junction, no point in the roundabout. But it signifies the promise of a road to come.

EDGELL:
It's taken time to transform these sites, to take away the contamination, to change and develop the infrastructure. Then it takes some time to encourage more jobs to come in.

VIV LONG:
All these lads are real miners, by the way. The majority are actors.

DAVIS:
But for those living through change, it is not always easy. Viv Long was at the real Battle of Orgreave. He was a miner from another part of Rotherham. His acting debut at the battle re-enactment was a success. Viv lost his mining job in 1994, he has worked almost continuously since then, but with less fulfilment and money than in the old days. Far from being loath to adapt from coal, he's been adapting too much.

LONG:
I had a go in the pub trade as a landlord. A short spell. It didn't work out for me. Then I had a go at lorry driving. I didn't enjoy it very much, too long hours. Packed that in. Tried to get something else while I was driving, ended up getting a little job down Rowmarsh at the industrial estate. Ten happy months there, quite enjoyed it, but not enough work to keep me fully employed there for the long term, which I were looking for. Got made redundant about three week ago. Just trying to get another job. Now I think I've got settled into one.

DAVIS:
It's not just that the area has had to move out of coal. The employers round here have changed their shape as well. Most people think that big corporations are taking over the world. But here, it seems to be the opposite concern that bothers people. There is no big paternalistic employer like the old Coal Board. No, this is the new industrial architecture. Units, not factories. Even the buildings somehow don't quite exude the permanence of the old jobs.

LONG:
On the right-hand side, the old baths, where the men, when they came out of the pit, used to get showered off.

DAVIS:
This is the site of Viv's old colliery. It once employed 800 people. Now it's a small industrial estate employing about 40.

LONG:
There is all brand new industrial estates coming up. All types of different jobs, but for a person like me, they're not jobs for me.

DAVIS:
At least no-one can any longer say that this area is overly dependent on any one employer or industry. Economic development here has been slow, it's been stumbling, it's been painful. Getting all the pieces to fit, the land, the infrastructure, the people, is an annoyingly laborious task. But, surprisingly, getting the economy to improve is the easy bit, compared to dealing with some of the social changes. Dave White has been involved in the parish council of Orgreave for decades.

DAVE WHITE:
(Vice-Chairman, Orgreave Parish Council)
The youngsters around here, they've got a good future, I would think. The environment is certainly changing for the better. Once we've got the open-cast finished, that will be tremendous there. 50-plus, many of those have never had a job since. They've just been on the scrap heap. They had no skills, only coal mining, unfortunately. That, I suppose, is how life went.

DAVIS:
Dave shows me a new housing estate, built over the old Treeton Colliery. This was linked to Orgreave by a tunnel. Nice houses, but where's the community gone?

WHITE:
In Orgreave, we used to have functions. We had barn dances on the playing fields. Closed roads down for Silver Jubilees. Ran a civil bonfire every year, with discos and barbecues with that. That all went, or seemed to go, about the time that Thatcherism came in. The community spirit seemed to die totally around that time. One time, you could say, "Oh, we are going to have a barn dance", and there would be thirty people helping you run it. If I said that now, I would be lucky if I got another one!

DAVIS:
I wonder why that's changed?

WHITE:
I just cannot understand it. Is it life that's gone on, moved on? I just do not know.

DAVIS:
For now, the battle re-enactment is the nearest thing there is to a barn dance, being a celebration of the village's heritage.

LONG:
As you see now, you get older in life, you see things has come to an end. The pits obviously had to come to an end. They couldn't keep running them, with running a loss. Some collieries were running a loss. But there were that many collieries going, they could have all mucked in together and made it pay. I am sure they could, to this day.

DAVIS:
The reconstruction has an added finale of hugging that did not occur on the day. Reality was never as sweet. But for Orgreave, the reconstructed battle of old is just a day's distraction from the real battle for the new.