A Quiet Revolution

Russell starts his own personal revolution

Words 1710

1985
Derbyshire—an English county in the Peak District National Park, known for its stunning landscapes, picturesque towns, and villages. Yet as Russell Miller walked his dog through the streets of his Derbyshire village on that dirty dawn, what he saw was the antithesis of that postcard image. Though the county prided itself on stately homes that showcased the wealth generated during the Industrial Revolution, that wealth had been built on the backs of thousands of working families. Those same families had once been crammed into the long rows of terraced houses—rows that still stood in Stonebridge, now worn down and weary with time.


He sank into the damp wool of his jacket, his miner’s cap pulled down over dead eyes. There were no others fool enough to be out walking on this grey, dank, dismal day—they were either still in bed or manning the picket lines. He shivered when icy rain drops sought out the warm places underneath his flannelette shirt.

Passing a boarded-up shop—another one closed it’s doors each week it seemed—and yet another homeless person huddled on its doorstep, Russell gave the sleeping man little more than a cursory glance before walking on.

Litter, blown by the cold wind, tumbled down the empty street, a discarded newspaper wrapped itself around Russell’s ankles before fluttering on its way, but not before displaying the headline on the front page— ‘The Enemy Within’— a reference to Prime Minister Thatcher’s decree that the country should regard the striking miners as the enemy.

Being referred to as “The Enemy” devastated the miners as during the war without coal Britain’s factories wouldn’t have continued to run, nor its iron and steel forged, transport would have stalled and the population frozen. Coal underpinned every layer of Britain’s war machine. Yet now they were the enemy?


Christmas 1984 had been an event best forgotten. Russell and his wife Ruth had to swallow their guilt when seeing disappointment on their children’s faces on Christmas morning. There’d been no longed-for bike for thirteen-year-old Charlie nor whatever it was the girls had their hearts set upon; Ruth would have known but hadn’t burdened him with those.

His village—the one he’d lived in since the day he was born, where many working men were miners—was ruined. Like his dad and grandad, and most of his peers, he’d grown up knowing the pit was his future. The mine’s closure had dealt a death blow to the community he’d known, now unrecognisable, thanks to Prime Minister Thatcher. Russell spat in the gutter at the thought of her. There had been no consultation or thought given to the century’s old cultural traditions, leaving whole communities without work.


Ruth’s nagging forced his reluctant attendance at the doctor’s surgery but once there Russell confided how he’d thought his family would be better off without him. Life without work and being unable to provide was becoming unbearable. The doctor suggested counselling and wrote a prescription for anti-depressants.

‘You must be doing a roaring trade on these happy pills, doc.’ Russell waved the prescription.

Doctor Thompson, Russell’s family doctor, had given him a ‘look ’over his glasses. He’d been the village doctor for over forty years, had raised his own family there, and slapped the backside of many of the babies he’d delivered, including Russell’s.

‘This too shall pass, Russ. Stonebridge will recover.’

‘You think so?’ Russell shook his head, wiping away the tears he couldn’t dare to shed at home or in the pub.

‘You men are fighting back every day out on the picket lines. You’re all tired but not defeated.’

‘Aye, and what do you say to your other patients, the ones who are still working despite the rest of us barely surviving? I guess you have to say the same things to them.’

‘It’s hard for everyone, Russ. The men who are being bussed in to work in the mine, despite all the name calling and the bad blood between brothers and neighbours, are doing what they think they must do for their families. There are no winners here.’

‘Those of us who’ve been manning the pickets for all this time, like to think we are all part of some great revolution against Thatcher’s policies, but we’re losing the fight, such as it is.’ Russell, his head bowed, said softly, ‘We’re beaten, Doc.’


On that cold, wet day, the snow clouds building, Russell wandered the streets aimlessly, a myriad of helpless, negative thoughts churned in his tired brain along with the names and faces of those who were no longer alive—he seriously considered joining them, those men who’d given in to despair over the dragged-out year of the strike.

His dog, who Russ couldn’t really afford to feed, stopped and cocked his leg on the lamppost at the corner of the street. Russ waited patiently—he had nowhere else to be—his eyes raised to the leaden sky and thought about the next power bill which he couldn’t afford to pay. While he waited for the dog to finish reading all the news left by other dogs on the lamppost, he stamped his feet to warm them up.

‘Come on, Sami,’ he tugged at the reluctant canine, ‘Let’s get a move on.’

The first flakes of snow began to fall, the air grew thicker, quieter, muffled by a hush that only snow could bring. A hint of pink brushed the sky, softening the edges of the world.

‘Ey up, Mate,’ Russell called out to a man standing outside a house a little further up the street of terraced houses.

‘Ey up. Taking the old dog for a walk before the snow sets in?’

‘Aye, it looks like we might get a few inches before long.’ As Russell came closer to the man he recognised him as a fellow striker. ‘No one else in the family wants to walk the bloody dog, so I thought I’d take him before my shift on the picket line.’ Russell gave a shrug, ‘not that standing for hours waving placards has done us much good.’

Russell saw the man was scrubbing at white paint from the wall of a house. He wore the same tired appearance on his face as did most of the population of Stonebridge these days. It was then he noticed what someone had graffitied on the house, the word, SCAB, in large letters, scrawled across the soot-blackened wall.

‘Bastards!’ He spat into the gutter.

The man wasn’t sure if Russell was scornful of the men who hadn’t supported the strike or at those who’d painted the word.

‘They got the wrong house this time,’ he said, referring to the latest spate of graffiti. Bending to dip his scrubbing brush in a galvanised bucket of soapy water, he said, ‘Mixed me up with my brother, I reckon.’

‘Y’brother’s been working then?’

‘Aye, he says he ain’t going to let his kids starve for a principle.’ He stopped scrubbing and looked Russell in the eyes, ‘I’m starting to think he might be right, Mate.’

Russell thought for a few seconds before deciding to help. ‘Have y’got another scrubbing brush? I’ll give you a hand. It’s going to take you a while to get that shit off by yourself.’

The two men stood side by side in companionable silence as they worked, snowflakes gently settling on their shoulders, like the softest blanket. As they scrubbed Russell thought about the man’s brother who had seen the futility of the strike and, despite the risk of losing his brother’s respect and love, had taken his own stand. For the first time since the strike had begun Russell had a glimpse of the “other side’s” point of view.

The snow was falling thicker now, the white letters almost gone, washed away into the gutter.

‘The man stopped scrubbing and wiped his wet hand on his trousers and held it out.

‘The name’s Tom Grainger.’

‘Russell Miller.’ The two men shook hands.

‘Thanks for stopping and giving me a hand, Russ.’

‘That’s ok, Mate, It felt good to do something useful for a change. It made me realise the real danger is in giving up.’ He lifted his face up to the leaden sky and breathed deeply. ‘Y’know, Mate, we need to remember the enemy isn’t each other. I’d forgotten that. Fighting amongst ourselves only serves to take the spotlight off the politicians who caused all this division and trouble in the first place.’

‘Have you got somewhere you need to be?’ Tom asked.

‘Not for a couple of hours. Why?’

‘Do you want to come in, warm up and have a cup of tea?’

‘Is the dog okay to come inside?’ Russell nodded at the terrier, shivering in the cold.

‘Aye, the missus likes dogs, she’ll make a fuss of him.’


As Tom’s wife busied herself making the tea in the little kitchen, Tom and Russell sat in the living room next to a small, coal fire.

‘It’s been a struggle finding enough money to even buy coal with no money coming in for so long, Russ. A bit ironic after all the years of digging the bloody stuff up, ey?’

Russell nodded, the strikers were all in the same boat. ‘I’ve been feeling as if nothing’s worthwhile lately, Tom,’ he paused before he admitted—‘thought about ending it,—he was finding it easier to talk to a relative stranger than to his wife—‘but today, scrubbing off that word, Scab, which I’ve screamed out myself, hundreds of times, I felt as if I was taking my power back.’

‘What do you mean by power?’

‘I suddenly realised so many things. What we’re doing to each other, becoming bitter, cruel, isolated. I can’t bring back the mine, I can’t defeat Thatcher, but I can still be a man my children can believe in.’ He gave a laugh. ‘I’m starting my own personal revolution.’

Tom smiled, bemused by his new friend’s fervour.’

‘It’s despair which is corroding our community. Small actions matter, Tom. It might be a quiet revolution, but it’s a real one.’


Prompt: https://youtu.be/zP7Wqt9rEL0
Written for:

SURVEY

Rhythms & Writing: Official WDC Contest  (E) Use the music provided to inspire your writing! #2002964 by Writing.Com Support

Some Derbyshire UK dialect used. Set in the year long coal miner’s strike when Prime Minister Thatcher’s government decided to close all the coal mines in Britain.

Scab is a word used for workers crossing the picket lines during a strike.