Novels

“If shitface asks me what I do with the housekeeping once more, I’ll carve him up with the pissing bread knife.”

What day is it? They’re all the same, no change in my routine at all. It’s Wednesday, my heart sinks, darts tonight for him. He’ll fall in around midnight. I’ll be in bed pretending to be asleep, he will clatter around the bedroom, dropping his clothes everywhere (leaving them for me to pick up in the morning). If that doesn’t stir me, he will climb all over me getting into bed, only waiting seconds before the groping starts.

‘Have you remembered your pill?’ he will tenderly slur. If I’m lucky Rosie will wake up for a feed (if she doesn’t I’ll kick the ruddy cot).

It isn’t lovemaking he wants when he’s drunk, it’s a quick screw: there again he might even move the sucking child on to the other breast to get there, he’s done that before now. Even my body isn’t my own (there’s food for thought, if our marriage survives the test of time, we will even be buried together, I’ll have him chasing me for eternity, cock erect and grabbing at my knickers). At this point I cry, my two-year-old doesn’t understand why. My breast is beginning to leak, my milk is coming in, the baby will stir at any time now, and I haven’t managed to get it together to preoccupy Thomas. Shit, I’ll have two of them kneading at my breasts at this feed.

I may as well just fling myself on the floor in front of my family, and shout, ‘Here I am, take whatever bit you want!’ I wonder how much would be left.

BBC Womens' Hour Top 100 Women's Watershed Fiction

"Funny, tragic, appalling and heartening all at once. How brave we are! Well, have to be  .  .  .  "
Fay Weldon

I had this vision in my mind once (brought tears to my eyes) of the Von Trapp children, all lined up, looking splendid in the new clothes Maria had made them out of some old curtains.

Mine never looked like that (bit of a sight they’d be in a Regency stripe and bathroom towelling anyway).

Whenever one of mine looked ‘well turned out’, there was always another sticking out like a sore thumb (the next in line for the goodies)...wish I could afford to have them all well clothed at the same time.

You Can’t Kill the Spirit.

They are our fathers, our sons, and our chosen partners. No one in their right mind would sentence them to a life in the dark, but what are the alternatives? For a working man, being on the dole is no nearer a way to touch the sun.

The history of mining communities all over the world tells the same story. Struggle, poverty, catastrophe and premature death. The fight didn’t start with this strike, and it certainly won’t end here. Life will continue to go on.

What was particularly to Abertillery and surrounding valleys was the unity, high spirits, and the unflagging role of the Women's Group played in supporting their men, their class, and each other. The following stories from women in Abertillery substantiate that support. In the very midst of frustration, hurt , anger and despair lie stories of survival, some of which kept morale soaring during that year of extra hard graft.

There are no winners in the class war, or in any oppression. Even the oppressors who wield the stick lose. The price they pay is in forfeiting some of their humanity with every blow they make.

"I’m very proud to be working class, and I’m more conscious of my roots and culture than ever before. If it wasn’t for the working classes, this country wouldn’t exist. We are the work-force, the horse that pulls the cart; we are what we are, and I can stand tall at the side of every one of my people." - MERYL

The Scab

Thro’ the picket line I’d go
Although the union said no
I was MacGregor’s man, and Thatcher’s too
And I followed them, because they knew

For ten months and a day
We fought our way
Across the picket line
Against the union men.

Why did they stand there every day
Staring with angry eyes
They must have known Scargill’s plan
Was just a pack of lies.

When the strike is over
And the Yank had gone away
The trial had passed, and we were
Left to face the reckoning day
No job, no pit,no wife,no home
But then I thought of something I gained
Ah yes, Scab is now my middle name.

ANON