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‘A police horse ran full-pelt at me’
In the second of two features, ex-miner PAUL KELLY records his experiences at the battle of Orgreave when police mounted an unprecedented attack on striking miners, and what he did in the aftermath of the great strike
Miners keep an eye on the mounted police, deployed in the cornfield behind the Orgreave coking plant, May 31, 1984
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I HAVE been to Orgreave on two occasions. I first went on June 18 1984. I was driven over by a friend who was doing his apprenticeship at Forgemasters. We arrived late in the morning. He dropped me off at the top of Orgreave Lane.
It was a fine, hot day. I walked down the lane with some strikers who had come down from Ayrshire Barony pit and we all anticipated that we would be involved in a Saltley Gate and shut down the coking plant at the bottom of the lane.
I headed down to the railway bridge. I stopped at the bridge on the narrow road. A mass of pickets blocked the way. I climbed up onto the bridge. Looking down towards the plant I could see the police in huge numbers behind long shields.
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In the first of two features, ex-miner PAUL KELLY shares his experiences as a 24-year-old striker in the miners’ strike against pit closures of 1984-5
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