The 'pirate' station was pro-striking miners, it's powerful signals interferred with Radio Trent's transmissions with fake messages and programmes over Trent's regular programming.
Radio 'Arthur' broadcast transcription – October 1984
(Over the top of Nottingham's sole Independent Local Radio station Trent's 301 meters medium wave frequency).
To the background music of, what resembles, mixed welsh valley coal mining choirs …
Female voice ''Hello, my name is Sandra Howard, today we have a programme change owing to the breakdown in talks between the National Coal Board and the National Union of Mine workers.
And because of continued interests in mining dispute, we are broadcasting a special programme. Recently, an allegation that we, at Radio Trent, are very biased in favour of the Nottinghamshire working miners and the coal board was made by a group of striking miners. On reflection, we feel, that their allegation does have substance, so the programme you are about to hear will illustrate the dispute and the striking miners points of view.
We have 4 Nottinghamshire striking miners, here, in the studio and they are due to answer any
questions that you may wish to ask, at the end of our programme. We have 2 phone numbers for you to ring in on, they are Nottingham 581 731 & 344 30.
Narrator: '' The spark, which fired the present strike, came on the 1st of March, 1984, when the NCB gave just 4 weeks notice of Closure of Cortonwood Colliery in Yorkshire. Ian McGregor had persistently refused to negotiate on the closure and on the general closure strategy. When, on the 14th April, Arthur Scargill asked for a public debate on the future of the industry, McGregor, replied: ''There is no way I can get into a public debate with a man who talks so much nonsense.
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| Arthur Scargill |
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| (Sir) Ian McGregor |
This is followed by a fake commercial break which includes a British Telecom shares purchasing commercial amid others including a mock conversation between an old ex-miner and his grandson ...
The male voice choir comes on ….
Male mimicking a young lad: 'Hey grandad, what's that ugly looking statue?'
Grandad:' That, lad, that was what they 'used' to call a Scab.'
Lad: 'Eee, look at the dog cocking it's leg up as a mark of respect. What's a Scab, Grandad?'
Grandad: 'A scab, lad, a scab is someone who crosses picket line. A scab is someone who stuffs his belly to busting; swills beer down his gullet, while his comrades starve. Scabs were the Coal Board's lackies. A Scab is the lowest form of life there is. I can remember the Great Coal Strike of 1984, over 80% of the miners were on strike, fighting pit closures. All though strike, scabs kept crossing picket lines, kept the pits going, tried to break the strike, eee it was a disgrace.'
Lad: 'What 'appened to the scabs, grandad?'
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| PM Margaret Thatcher |
Grandad: 'Well, Scabs played right in to the coal boards and the governments hands. You see, Prime minister of the day, 'Adolf' Thatcher had told board chairman, a man called McGregor to run coal industry down, to sell off the best pits to highest bidder and to close the rest of the pits down & put miners on the dole. It wa' terrible, Millions on the dole. A waste of nations best assets, all because scabs let it happen, who'd have thought that there'd be scabs in mining ….. sound of snoring. Mr Bottomley, Mr Bottomley, wake up – you've been dreaming. 'Dreaming? Dreaming? that wa' no dream, it wa' a bloody nightmare. '
Narrator: Comrades, don't scab and stop your coal industry from becoming a thing of the past. And remember, today's scabs are tomorrow's dole queues.
Narrator: Comrades, don't scab and stop your coal industry from becoming a thing of the past. And remember, today's scabs are tomorrow's dole queues.
Another voice: Coal is, ironically speaking, er, but, we have to say this, 'the energy of the future', so much so that the oil barons are now going round looking for coal fields in Australia, America & in parts of Africa and so on & is buying them 'hand over fist'. Well, of course, they're very much interested in seeing that any rev. of the public sector of being smashed. The Thatcher plan is to ...
[moved to Ride of The Valkyries – Wagner].
Narrator: To the working Nottinghamshire miners, I say this, it was 6 months ago that our union, the National Union of Mine workers started the strike in defence of mining jobs. The union stood proud and defiant against what seemed like overwhelming odds. And the vast majority of miners downed tools at once and joined the strike, ready to do battle with the NCB and the government.
But where the devil were you? Even before the first shot was fired, you had already ran from the battlefield and crouched down behind your wives and children who were not prepared to sacrifice their standards of living. Hiding behind your mortgages and your high purchase agreements, the only excuse you could think of was 'we want a national ballot'. And you went on whining with this excuse for 6 whole months!
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For all those & the others that are involved in buying up the coalfields up and down the country & around the world have got their eyed firmly fixed on the vale of Belvoir, just south of the Nottinghamshire coalfield, in the Selby coalfield & in many other of the lucrative areas. And I've got a message for those who perhaps think that they're doing alright in parts of Nottinghamshire & the midlands areas. But when that privatisation comes in, and we hope this strike will prevent it, if it's allowed to come in then there is no question at all that many of the , benefits & conditions that have been fought for will be cast in the wind.
[Radio Trent id.]
Woman: '.. I don't think anybody realises just how bad these problems are. We've had children that are starving, and I mean starving. We've had a case of a 6 week old baby that didn't have a bottle for 2 days; we had a family come in – a family with 3 children – and the children had had just a biscuit to eat all day; we've had problems of people who don't know where to turn next because they've got someone sick and they can't afford the prescription; they can't even afford the bus fare to come to the strike centres to see if they can get any help, there's been problems almost impossible to deal with, problems with DHSS and there have been such hold-ups with the payments, it's almost incredible, people are actually getting giro payments for 5 pence; we've had a family of 7 children get a giro for 91p; I could go on forever, and it just makes me so angry … [male voice choir sings]
Narrator: Are you a non-miner listening to this programme? We know that many people who listen to Radio Trent support the striking miners in their struggle. We know that many of you want to help the striking miners and their families. You can help, money is essential to the striking miners and their struggle. And Any donations, no matter how small, will be greatly received and wisely used.
The money will be used in the fight to save jobs, to feed our families and to put a permanent halt to the tide of industrial destruction that's sweeping through the nations coal industry. You can send your donations to miners solidarity fund, St James House, Vicker Lane Sheffield or you can pay in cash here, at the Radio Trent reception office & they will see that any money reaches us.
Put your hand in your pocket and strike a blow for the working class people of this station. Give until it hurts.
Arthur Scargill Speech:''.. I've been sick and tired over the past 5 years of seeing the media, ITN & the BBC trot out to housewives to say our men shouldn't go on strike, This time I think we should salute those wives who've gone up to the picket lines in support of their husbands.'' (Cheers)
[Radio Trent id]
Scargill: '' Ian McGregor has been brought into this industry to eliminate over 70 pits and to get rid of over 70,000 jobs. Two years ago, when I first reviled the secret plans of the board, I was vilified by the board, itself, I was smeared by the press & television, and, yes, to their shame even by sections of my own union – I ask you, I was telling the truth or was it the union.'
Welsh male voice: '… Tricked by coal board policy, that every time he wants to close a pit, and we all knew it. What do they do, first they pick off one pit at a time, and they've got a set pattern, they withhold basic investment then they spread rumour & despondency then they emphasis the rewards to be gained by the transfer of men to some long-life unit then they dangle a blind 'juicy' redundancy carrot and before you know where you are, you've got another pit closure on your hands – you've actually got a pit voting for its own closure.
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| Mounted poice officer swings baton at a photographer |
Narrator: During this protracted dispute, the conduct of the police can only be described as absolutely diabolical, a catalogue of atrocities have been recorded by both striking miners and impartial observers. The National Union Of Mineworkers deplore violence but the police seemed positively determined to precipitate violence on the picket line. The beating of truncheons on their riot shields is their battle cry often outnumbering the pickets 3:1, they advance and inflict their licensed brutality. As usual the media are there in abundance drawn frantically to a naked flame with their never ending search to satisfy their craving for the spilling of blood.
Gripping their ghoulish footage in their greedy palms, they rush back to the studio, just in time for the news at 5:45 and carefully edited film that is sure to portray the striking miners in as worst a light as possible when transmitted to an indifferent audience of glaze-eyed gargoyles perched before their television sets and ready to believed everything they and ready to question nothing.
The county of Nottinghamshire is now a police state. And her boundaries are heavily fortified by the self-styled state police. The movement of the population into & out of the county is strictly controlled. It would appear that the chief constable deems all industrial action as being subversive and sees all striking miners as terrorists. Daily, he surveys the conflict from the battlements of his citadel.
I, eagerly await the time when the police are made fully accountable to the British people for the atrocities committed during this dispute.
And the judiciary should be exposed for the role they played in the sinister triangle formed by the police, the government & the courts. For the striking miner brought before the courts must suffer great injustice. The harshest of sentences are imposed on striking miners. Sentences that are designed to inflict as much misery & hardship, not only on this poor wretch, but also on his dependants.
I am astonished that these wigged and gowned egotistic/megalomaniacs don't bite when using words like justice.
[fake commercial break]
Another voice: 'The competitiveness of British Coal is restricted because of the low level of government aid to the industry. Britain sees the lowest subsidy per ton of coal compared of all countries in the common market. Even disregarding other tables, in 1982 Belgian coal was subsidised to £17, the figure for French coal was £18, West Germany was £8.50. In the UK it was down to £3.30.
Sandra Howard returns with a closing thank you / credits message, stating that Radio Trent 'will now resume now programming.'
Ending with the choir singing 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic'.
[Another Radio Trent jingle follows].
Transmission end after approx 27 minutes
Normal Radio Trent programming reappears.
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| The once very outspoken Scargill is now silenced |
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| Headstock winding wheel memorial (usually all you see left at a former pit site) |