The Angry Nottingham Miners

In the neatly kept frame houses of Nottingham, one room only is bright at night, and the Christmas trees standing in the windows are unlit. Still, no one there complains about the fuel shortage, for it was in the coal fields of Nottingham that the miners' November revolt began, precipitating Britain's present crisis.

Much of the country blames the miners for the dimmed lights and three-day work week. Some shops and businesses in the Midlands are even threatening to refuse service to the miners and their families. The miners, however, are solid in their fight. "We're not stupid any more," says Marie Noton, whose husband has been in the pits for 23 years. "We see where a few people are making big profits and we're tired of it. A lot of people are getting a lot of money because they have a lot of money. We've been bamboozled as long as we've been down in the pits."

The general feeling is that the work is degrading--and that the pay should make up for it. Base pay for journeymen miners now is $92 a week, about what a London secretary makes. They are asking for $112.50. "Forty thousand miners in Britain have black lung," Bill Ball, a miner for 33 years, told TIME'S Skip Gates. "We work on our knees, dig on our knees, and shovel on our knees for an entire shift in a space 2 ft. 9 in. tall. If we have to relieve ourselves, we do it right on the spot. It's dark when we go down into the pits, and it's dark when we come out. That's why we should be at least equally paid with the best in this country." A colleague adds: "Wherever you go down there, it's dust --you can't breathe for the dust--and you're walking most of the time up to your knees in water."

Each of the 30 pits around Nottingham has its own club, cricket fields and schools. After they finish for the day, the miners usually stand around the bar at their own pubs. Though the refusal to work overtime has cost the miners $25 to $37.50 a week, they seem ready to stick it out. "We're a close-knit community," says Terry McGuire, a huge Scot who has been in the mines since World War II. "If somebody did need some assistance, he wouldn't ask the government. We'll take care of our own."

Edward Heath's Conservative government is disliked by the miners. Says Joe Wheelan, an officer at the National Union of Mineworkers in Mansfield, a mining town near Nottingham: "Heath has love and a kiss on the cheek for the oil sheiks, but he has a slap in the face for the British miner." Adds a miner's wife: "Brother Heath's making it seem that if the miners lift their ban, then petrol rationing will be unnecessary. I just can't believe that. We're being used as scapegoats. The only thing he hasn't blamed us for is the Arab-Israeli war."

Though the miners cannot be blamed for the war, it could not have come at a better time to help their cause. Not only has the oil shortage made coal an almost precious commodity, but the example of rising oil prices is one the miners feel they can use. If the Arabs can get more money, why then cannot the British mineworkers? "If coal is needed to this degree," says Terry McGuire, "then it's just the law of necessity, of supply and demand. We want a reasonable living wage, and we can hold out forever. The government doesn't realize it, but this is another country."

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