Last updated on September 20th, 2023 at 08:33 pm
Reading Time: 2 minutesWelcome to my last ever tour of duty on the Miners’ Strike. This week finds me still suspended from driving, sat in the back of a Transit Minibus as one of the crew, in Ripon, North Yorkshire, of all places. The furthest north I had ever been at that time.
It was a really boring week to be honest, the highlights were testing the sense of humour of our North Yorkshire Constabulary Traffic officers who escorted our convoy of Transits wherever we went.
They finally lost the plot when we reached a roundabout that we had been round dozens of times before and did a pre-arranged bomb burst onto all of the roads exiting the roundabout. The ensuing panic and disapproval from the North Yorkshire officers made us chuckle even more, but they never did see the funny side of it.
The only other event of any note was a drinking completion in the NAAFI between the Met and GMP, which I believe was declared an honourable draw after nobody agreed to lie down.
Friday came, our last ever day up north. Punctuated only by short spells on a a totally calm picket line, until early afternoon when we were relieved and dismissed for the long drive back to London.
As we were being escorted back to the M1 by North Yorkshire our driver thought it would be a hoot to overtake the escorting vehicle. On a dual carriageway. The Traffic Cops were not impressed, pulled us over and reported our driver for Dangerous Driving (it wasn’t).
The perfect end to our last week. No Further Action was rightly taken against our driver who will probably never want to visit Yorkshire ever again.
End of the chapter, and almost the end of the saga.
And this is as good a time as any to remember and acknowledge an Inspector called Don. One of the finest Inspectors I ever knew, one of that rare breed that inspired his troops and they followed him anywhere. This automatically made him unpopular with the management.
If you’re reading this Don, please get in touch, I owe you a lot.
To be continued…………..
