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In tribute to an unflinching class fighter and stalwart of the NUM
Remembering KEN CAPSTICK, vice-president of the National Union of Mineworkers Yorkshire Area
Ken Capstick, former vice-chairman of the NUM’s Yorkshire Area
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THE labour and trade union movement has lost one of its most respected activists with the death of Ken Capstick, who for more than half-a-century was a tower of strength in the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and close friend and comrade to former NUM president Arthur Scargill.
Capstick, 84, died in Bulgaria where he was visiting his son David. He was born in the Yorkshire mining community of Hemsworth and trained as an electrician in the coalmining industry, becoming an activist in the NUM. He worked at Park Hill colliery in Wakefield. When Park Hill closed in 1982 he transferred to the huge Selby coalfield.
A decade earlier he was involved in the Battle of Saltley Gate, when engineering workers in the Midlands downed tools to reinforce striking miners picketing a coking depot, successfully closing it down.
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With solidarity coming in from across Britain and the world, PETER LAZENBY speaks to the people who made Christmas 1984 a celebration of working-class resistance in Britain’s striking coalmining communities