NUM official was stopped three times and threatened with arrest as he tried to get to Orgreave
‘We have been asking for a full inquiry for 40 years’
A former NUM official has told how he was threatened with arrest three times as he tried to join fellow miners protesting at Orgreave.
Bob Usher, who was assistant secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers lodge at Vane Tempest pit in 1984, said: “With hindsight it was probably a good thing that we never got there.”
The Sunderland man re-lived his story to the Sunderland Echo on the same day as the Orgreave Inquiry held a listening event at Redhills Durham Miners Hall as it investigated the events of June 18, 1984.
Thousands of miners and police were at the Orgreave coking plant in South Yorkshire that day, with clashes leaving many injured. A total of 95 miners were arrested, but proceedings against them later collapsed.
Bob was not among them but that’s because of the road blocks he encountered when he tried to get through.
“The police used to set road blocks up. There were four of us in a car and we got stopped about three times. I remember saying to this policeman ‘hang on a second, you are stopping me from any free right. I am not allowed to travel in my own country’.
“He went ‘aw that’s no problem but if you don’t turn back we will lock you up for 24 hours’.”
“We went along the road and a couple of mile along, there was a road block and we got stopped again. That happened about three or four times. In the end, we just gave it up and came home which with hindsight was not a bad thing when you see what actually happened at Orgreave.”
Bob said he encountered his own days of trouble much earlier in the miners strike when he was picketing at Lumley cokeworks.
“We were all sort of standing round and then I saw this inspector point out half a dozen of us and we got arrested. We asked what we were being arrested for and we were told obstruction.
“We ended up in the cells and that was a week or two weeks into the miners strike. It was on the TV. I remember the cameras being outside when we came out.”
Bob welcomed the inquiry into what happened at Orgreave and said: “We have been asking for a full inquiry for 40 years.”
The inquiry stressed that nobody attending the Durham event would be required to speak and people could share their experiences in a group or privately on a one-to-one basis.