Thatchers children


Exactly. She wanted the European free market.

still we are here now, awaiting the high wage economy and levelling up which was promised and to look after our own ie the nhs

that’s why they gave the Tories their vote presumably.

I never did, so there’s nowt for me to do, if they think the Tories are delivering, then they will vote for them again
Thatcher and the EU shut down Sunderland's yards.
They were never forgiven
 
I was born in Consett in 1992, so the steelworks was closed. Both my grandfathers were miners. My dad has worked in factories his whole life and at 58 his hands are knackered. Despite that me and my sister wanted for nowt growing up. I’m very grateful to my parents.

I met a girl from the Midlands when I was 20 and moved down there at 21. The difference in employment opportunities down here is astounding. We’d saved up enough for a deposit on our first house by the time I was 27. Something I doubt would’ve been possible in Consett.

I still miss the north east dearly and my little girl (just turned one) will know all about where her dad comes from as she grows up. One day I’ll be back, probably when I retire as the mrs has fell in love with Northumberland.

Still proud to say I’m from Consett. You should always be proud of your roots.

Tbf, Consett being out in the sticks, the difference in employment opportunities between there & Newcastle (even sunderland & boro for that matter) will be a canny bit different
 
Left shiney como 1982 apprenticeship at the yards supposedly a job for life, disillusioned at closures sat at 57 semi retired after hawking my arse all over the world doing my bit wondering what the Fukk happened or what was right or wrong, drove past the yard I saved my time at hoping to Fukk this film studio really takes off
I was a year ahead of you, in the yards, (on the Tyne, though). Did my first year at Hebburn training centre with some cracking lads from Pickies and Sunderland Shipbuilders. Did ten years before the yards more or less closed down, completely. Hated every second of every minute of it.
 
She was a total kernt.
Left us to rot up here in the North East.

Yes and no and not the only one.
I’ll explain IMO . Leaving the mining communities to fend for themselves apart from the redundancy cheque (which kept the pubs going for another year) was a cynical act of destruction of the communities and creation of state dependency for several generations.
The Tories clearly believed that people would just up sticks and go find work elsewhere whilst there was massive unemployment and whilst paying out benefits. These people did not have the education, training or confidence to go work somewhere else. Problem was this was often passed onto the generation below. It was a vicious circle of state dependency.
Of course many broke free from this existence but it is more understandable than people give credit for that communities would lose their purpose and pride.
They had bring the training and the jobs to the people, telling people to get on their bikes was not good enough.

On the plus side things like Nissan were a lasting legacy the likes of which more should have been done.

Then we have labour, and Tony Blair for me he let the rot as you call it and I would call it low inward investment continue. I was expecting so much more but he seemed intent on keeping his city mates happy and feathering his own nest.

In summary I think politicians have left us to rot in general.
Well if the IRA had done better job that day then many of todays woes may not have come home to roost. Housing, energy spring to mind etc. whilst I’m not condoning terrorism I wouldn’t have shed a tear if they had got her.
By the way they have a pretty decent collection of photos and memorabilia type stuff on display in the hotel about the bombing.

You are condoning terrorism. Which is pretty sick. Plenty of politicians have had the opportunity to learn from and fix her mistakes. So I doubt very much it would have changed anything.
Aye, let's shut down our entire coal industry because we could get it a bit cheaper from abroad 🤦‍♂️
I mean, relying on foreign energy sources has proved a really successful policy and all destruction of entire communities was worth it to save a few quid.


The coal industry was wiped out for political as well as economic reasons we know that.
There could have been, should have been a skimmed down efficient version but the govydidn’t believe they could ever get the reform through the unions, so just put a nuke under the whole lot. Heart breaking waste but it was a war of sorts and an economic coal industry was never going to evolve with the union’s involved... yes they were radical in their ways but it would have been like turkeys voting for Xmas for them to accept the radical change needed. It just wasn’t going to happen. All a terrible waste.
People these days laugh when I say I left shiney comp and I didn’t know what a university was, I’d heard of them but didn’t know how to get there a bit like hogwarts a bit of a mythical place.
Years and years later I was on about this to my mate from school we starTed school on the same day been mates ever since he did a couple of degrees post shiney comp I was whinging about our shut schooling and he explained it like this.
We were never meant to be educated places like shiney comp were there to funnel kids through till ages 16 when they would be filtered through into the local employers any one who did any other was the exception to the rule.
Now take away the local industries and you are just left with shit schools churning out under educated non prepared kids with no prospects ……………………… honest man it’s criminal when you think about it.

People these days laugh when I say I left shiney comp and I didn’t know what a university was, I’d heard of them but didn’t know how to get there a bit like hogwarts a bit of a mythical place.
Years and years later I was on about this to my mate from school we starTed school on the same day been mates ever since he did a couple of degrees post shiney comp I was whinging about our shut schooling and he explained it like this.
We were never meant to be educated places like shiney comp were there to funnel kids through till ages 16 when they would be filtered through into the local employers any one who did any other was the exception to the rule.
Now take away the local industries and you are just left with shit schools churning out under educated non prepared kids with no prospects ……………………… honest man it’s criminal when you think about it.

Drastic solution to a drastic problem, I would imagine.

Actually Billy I don’t think it was a planned thing, the education was a simply a shocking standard because nobody cared enough. There was no accountability.
Today’s children get a much higher standard of education if they want it, and have been given a decent start in terms of attitudes and behaviours by their parents.
 
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Not sure it was the governments fault you stopped going to school 2 years before you left??

That may have been down to you?
teachers strikes was a part of it, PE teacher doing the English lessons when the English teacher went on the sick ( we talked about and played football instead ) and a lack of teachers for some lessons, meant it became the wild west, bullying and messing around was off the scale, we didn't have a French teacher for awhile, so we got a 19 year old French exchange student standing in, pretty thing, but damn the idiots made her life hell, We had a lad called Kenny, a Coloured lad built like a brick shit house, was disabled and on crutches, was well know in Shields iirc, he had been expelled from a few schools and was dumped at ours, his favourite pass time was getting his willy out and whacking the girls with it, his other pass time was whacking the lads with his crutches. It bloody hurt too!

Decided ( wrongly ) it was a waste of time, so I give up on school and went less and less, where I lived was grim at the time, was bullied as my step dad worked, the year I was in had to have been around 3 quarters of the kids parents on the dole and a few "posh kids" from Fellgate. The school had no money, was under funded and falling down, I used to think it was the teachers fault but as I got older and understood more, I now think they tried the best, but it was pissing in the wind for them. It must have been soul destroying for them.

I remember science when the "hard" lads decided to mess around when we were doing an experiment on evaporation, we had nail polish remover, acetone I think its called, so they started lighting little cotton balls and throwing them around at each other until one of them decide to tip the jar of the stuff on the bench towards me and light it, needless to say I was set on fire, scary as fuck, but didn't set me on fire as such but the stuff burnt on me, so lost a bit of hair and had heat burns some blisters on my legs as that was soaked the most with it, our class then got banned from any further experiments.

I look back and sometimes get bloody angry and feel a bit sorry for myself, how unfair it all was, but it wasn't the kids fault either, just too many kids from broken families together, bored kids with nothing and nothing to do and no one to care meant they all went a bit feral.

Mind one of the lads who was an arse at school was found dead a few years ago now, drink and drugs, long rap sheet of stealing, found dead in a shed, poor sod had no chance, his mam died when he was young and his dad was a known thief, used to get his son to steal bikes for him, he never had a chance.

But you are right, it was my fault that I give up, I have tried to educate myself after the fact, the internet has been a god send for that, but the kids back then in the poorest areas had it tough thanks to the government of the day, Boldon School, looked light years ahead of the school I ended up at, Hedworthfield was the pits and never could understand how too schools so close together could be so very different.
 
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teachers strikes was a part of it, PE teacher doing the English lessons when the English teacher went on the sick ( we talked about and played football instead ) and a lack of teachers for some lessons, meant it became the wild west, bullying and messing around was off the scale, we didn't have a French teacher for awhile, so we got a 19 year old French exchange student standing in, pretty thing, but damn the idiots made her life hell, We had a lad called Kenny, a Coloured lad built like a brick shit house, was disabled and on crutches, was well know in Shields iirc, he had been expelled from a few schools and was dumped at ours, his favourite pass time was getting his willy out and whacking the girls with it, his other pass time was whacking the lads with his crutches. It bloody hurt too!

Decided ( wrongly ) it was a waste of time, so I give up on school and went less and less, where I lived was grim at the time, was bullied as my step dad worked, the year I was in had to have been around 3 quarters of the kids parents on the dole and a few "posh kids" from Fellgate. The school had no money, was under funded and falling down, I used to think it was the teachers fault but as I got older and understood more, I now think they tried the best, but it was pissing in the wind for them. It must have been soul destroying for them.

I remember science when the "hard" lads decided to mess around when we were doing an experiment on evaporation, we had nail polish remover, acetone I think its called, so they started lighting little cotton balls and throwing them around at each other until one of them decide to tip the jar of the stuff on the bench towards me and light it, needless to say I was set on fire, scary as fuck, but didn't set me on fire as such but the stuff burnt on me, so lost a bit of hair and had heat burns some blisters on my legs as that was soaked the most with it, our class then got banned from any further experiments.

I look back and sometimes get bloody angry and feel a bit sorry for myself, how unfair it all was, but it wasn't the kids fault either, just too many kids from broken families together, bored kids with nothing and nothing to do and no one to care meant they all went a bit feral.

Mind one of the lads who was an arse at school was found dead a few years ago now, drink and drugs, long rap sheet of stealing, found dead in a shed, poor sod had no chance, his mam died when he was young and his dad was a known thief, used to get his son to steal bikes for him, he never had a chance.

But you are right, it was my fault that I give up, I have tried to educate myself after the fact, the internet has been a god send for that, but the kids back then in the poorest areas had it tough thanks to the government of the day, Boldon School, looked light years ahead of the school I ended up at, Hedworthfield was the pits and never could understand how too schools so close together could be so very different.

The standard of education in the 70s was shocking and so many people never recovered from it, set them at a certain level of expectation and that was it for their life it’s sad as fukk man. one of my biggest gripes even today is that teaching should be one of the best paid professions to attract the best people.

it’s a sad fact not everyone swims there are a lot more who sink
 
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teachers strikes was a part of it, PE teacher doing the English lessons when the English teacher went on the sick ( we talked about and played football instead ) and a lack of teachers for some lessons, meant it became the wild west, bullying and messing around was off the scale, we didn't have a French teacher for awhile, so we got a 19 year old French exchange student standing in, pretty thing, but damn the idiots made her life hell, We had a lad called Kenny, a Coloured lad built like a brick shit house, was disabled and on crutches, was well know in Shields iirc, he had been expelled from a few schools and was dumped at ours, his favourite pass time was getting his willy out and whacking the girls with it, his other pass time was whacking the lads with his crutches. It bloody hurt too!

Decided ( wrongly ) it was a waste of time, so I give up on school and went less and less, where I lived was grim at the time, was bullied as my step dad worked, the year I was in had to have been around 3 quarters of the kids parents on the dole and a few "posh kids" from Fellgate. The school had no money, was under funded and falling down, I used to think it was the teachers fault but as I got older and understood more, I now think they tried the best, but it was pissing in the wind for them. It must have been soul destroying for them.

I remember science when the "hard" lads decided to mess around when we were doing an experiment on evaporation, we had nail polish remover, acetone I think its called, so they started lighting little cotton balls and throwing them around at each other until one of them decide to tip the jar of the stuff on the bench towards me and light it, needless to say I was set on fire, scary as fuck, but didn't set me on fire as such but the stuff burnt on me, so lost a bit of hair and had heat burns some blisters on my legs as that was soaked the most with it, our class then got banned from any further experiments.

I look back and sometimes get bloody angry and feel a bit sorry for myself, how unfair it all was, but it wasn't the kids fault either, just too many kids from broken families together, bored kids with nothing and nothing to do and no one to care meant they all went a bit feral.

Mind one of the lads who was an arse at school was found dead a few years ago now, drink and drugs, long rap sheet of stealing, found dead in a shed, poor sod had no chance, his mam died when he was young and his dad was a known thief, used to get his son to steal bikes for him, he never had a chance.

But you are right, it was my fault that I give up, I have tried to educate myself after the fact, the internet has been a god send for that, but the kids back then in the poorest areas had it tough thanks to the government of the day, Boldon School, looked light years ahead of the school I ended up at, Hedworthfield was the pits and never could understand how too schools so close together could be so very different.

Yeah mate get your wider and good point
 
Yes and no and not the only one.
I’ll explain IMO . Leaving the mining communities to fend for themselves apart from the redundancy cheque (which kept the pubs going for another year) was a cynical act of destruction of the communities and creation of state dependency for several generations.
The Tories clearly believed that people would just up sticks and go find work elsewhere whilst there was massive unemployment and whilst paying out benefits. These people did not have the education, training or confidence to go work somewhere else. Problem was this was often passed onto the generation below. It was a vicious circle of state dependency.
Of course many broke free from this existence but it is more understandable than people give credit for that communities would lose their purpose and pride.
They had bring the training and the jobs to the people, telling people to get on their bikes was not good enough.

On the plus side things like Nissan were a lasting legacy the likes of which more should have been done.

Then we have labour, and Tony Blair for me he let the rot as you call it and I would call it low inward investment continue. I was expecting so much more but he seemed intent on keeping his city mates happy and feathering his own nest.

In summary I think politicians have left us to rot in general.


You are condoning terrorism. Which is pretty sick. Plenty of politicians have had the opportunity to learn from and fix her mistakes. So I doubt very much it would have changed anything.



The coal industry was wiped out for political as well as economic reasons we know that.
There could have been, should have been a skimmed down efficient version but the govydidn’t believe they could ever get the reform through the unions, so just put a nuke under the whole lot. Heart breaking waste but it was a war of sorts and an economic coal industry was never going to evolve with the union’s involved... yes they were radical in their ways but it would have been like turkeys voting for Xmas for them to accept the radical change needed. It just wasn’t going to happen. All a terrible waste.


Actually Billy I don’t think it was a planned thing, the education was a simply a shocking standard because nobody cared enough. There was no accountability.
Today’s children get a much higher standard of education if they want it, and have been given a decent start in terms of attitudes and behaviours by their parents.
I’d like to think you are right about no one caring enough, but can’t help think there was a bigger picture I went to Shiney comp that was a showcase school of the time some the best facilities going , language labs lecture theatres drama rooms libraries most of which never used and only opened when there were visits to show off can’t help but think there was rabbit away like.
 

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