IN AN unlikely alliance, miners sacked during the 1984 strike and a
leading Scottish Conservative will today join with other members of a
delegation fighting for Monktonhall Colliery to be reopened.
After two years of knocking in vain on the doors of St Andrew's House,
the miners who want to reopen the colliery will at last get the chance
to put their case to the Government in London -- thanks to a Scottish
Tory councillor.
Monktonhall Miners' Consortium made no fewer than 38 attempts to seek
a meeting with Ministers or senior civil servants at the Scottish
Office, latterly enlisting the help of Councillor Christine Richard,
leader of the Conservative group on Edinburgh District Council, but to
no avail.
But Councillor Richard was so impressed by the case made by the former
miners that she switched the focus to London and arranged two meetings
today with Mr David Heathcoat-Amory, the Minister responsible for the
coal industry at the Department of Energy, and with the chairman of the
Select Committee on Energy, Dr Michael Clark.
The consortium's chairman, Mr Jackie Aitchison, who was sacked during
the miners' strike for standing on the wrong side of a white line
outside Bilston Glen Colliery, said yesterday: ''Labour are not
interested in helping us because their philosophy is one of accepting
only reopening under ownership of British Coal, who have said that is
not going to happen. Christine Richard listened to us and said she was
impressed by our case.''
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