How strike forced Strike to change

Mar 18 2004 By Rhodri Phillips, The Journal

Norman Strike was just 33 when he was pictured in a struggle with police on a picket line in 1984.

And when the image appeared in The Journal last week to mark the 20th anniversary of the miners' strike it brought a seam of memories flooding back.

At the time Mr Strike's surname caused him no end of grief when he was arrested in the grip of the hostile dispute.

He said: "The name did cause a bit of a stir when I got arrested. A policeman would ask me my name and I would say `Strike.'

"He would reply `Yeah right, and I am Arthur Scargill.'

Norman, now 53, works as an English teacher in Harlow, Essex, and has no regrets about making a stand during the strike, when he was working at Westoe pit.

He said: "They were happy times and they were sad times. I think in our hearts we knew we were going to get beaten. We expected everyone to come out in our favour but no-one did.

"It was a young man's strike. We were not going to get any redundancy payments and we had to fight for our rights. I was fighting for a job I didn't even want."

During the year of strikes Norman toured the country in support of the picket lines. He stayed with a number of teachers, who suggested he should get in to the profession.

In March 1985 Norman moved down to London and stayed with a political band called The Redskins.

There was an infamous appearance on The Tube with the band in November 1984, when Norman was due to speak out in favour of the miners' strike. The plug was pulled before he got the chance.

He said: "That was a great experience. There was uproar after, that I hadn't been given the chance to speak. I drank pints of Southern Comfort with the band backstage and we got to meet Grandmaster Flash, who was also on the show that night.

"In London I started working for the GLC before Thatcher had closed it down. I then decided to give teaching a go.

I didn't have any O-levels or A-levels but I asked the lecturers at Portsmouth Poly to give me a chance and they did.

"I graduated with a 2:1 in Literary Studies and then studied to become a teacher."

Teaching stints in Cambridgeshire, Hull and London followed before Mr Strike went to Kenya in 1998 for two years to work as a volunteer, teaching English.

He met his Kenyan-born wife there and they moved back to England together and had a son, Tim, who is now three.

He said: "I am one of the lucky ones. A lot of mates stayed on the dole. I enjoy being a teacher but it is tough. I am more tired now than I was when I was working as a miner even though I get 13 weeks holiday a year.

Sometimes I would prefer to be on the picket line than in the classroom.

I have been on strike since I became a teacher, but only for a couple of days. I support industrial action, there is always a reason for it."

Mr Strike's wife also has a name which relates to what she does.

She won four gold medals and a silver at the British Wheelchair Championships this year and is now in training for the Paralympics in Athens.

Her name is Anne Olympia Wafula.