When the front door was underground
In the mid 1980s. the bitter miners’ strike was over and the headquarters of the National Union of Mineworkers had moved north to Sheffield. At the time, I was a negotiating official with the then National Communications Union and had a meeting at the new NUM offices in Sheffield.
When I reached the building, I was astonished to find that the front entrance was suspended in space with no means of access. Instead we had to enter the building through the darkness of the underground car park. Somehow this seems a metaphor for the failure of the NUM to win the strike and block mine closures.
I was reminded of this experience by today’s story that the building, after standing empty for 20 years, is now to become a 24-hour casino. Again this seems like a metaphor for how our economy has increasingly moved from real work like mining coal to speculation based on little more than chance.
And, as for miners, today they are almost as rare in Britain as chimney sweepers.