h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Battle of Orgreave - Monday 18 June, 1984 - A9361334
Author: Pinniped - U183682


Restructured (trying to keep it so that the italic voice relates the events of the day and the plain text voice describes the more general context).

I think this is as good as I can make it now, so I'm offering it to PR again.

Hi Pinniped, you say this is a second visit to PR for this article, how long ago was it first presented?.
It's current format does'nt meet the writing guidelines in terms of style and layout. It's a rather large body of text that needs breaking down onto sub-sections, the Italic writing is not required nor conforms to EG writing in that way.

Perhaps you should take a look at the Writing Guidelines here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/Writing-Guidelines

I'm sure others will be along to offer assistance as well .

ST.

Hi Straighttalker

February 06 (see former PR thread below the Entry. Though it's brief, you'll find comment on the 'need' for headers/subsections there)

I hear your point about the Guidelines (and I'm very familiar with them already), but if you don't mind I'll wait for more opinion.

Let me know what you think of the content of the Entry. That's what counts, of course.

The content reads like a novel to me, you say in the footnote that they are real people from reliable journalistic sources yet no link or list of these sources. Although a good read as a story in the context of an article for the guide, I have doubts.As you say, await further comments from those more experienced than me, mine is only an observation based on looking at loads of articles and the style and manner they are written as well as the writing guidelines.

I'll watch this one with interest.
regards.
ST.

The content's such that guideline style comment seems almost irrelevant when you finish, even though that's what we're in PR for. It left me with such a sense of shame that it ever came to this in the UK, our developed-world country.

Don't know what you've changed Pin, but it felt a smoother read this time, more pulled together. The parallel between the police and pickets, and Maggie and Arthur seemed clearer.

Shan't comment on subheaders etc except to say I was happy without them. I'd have to read it again with them specifically in mind to see if they could help to focus thought without distracting from the account. Too late for that tonight.
Waz

personally, I think itwould be clearer if the quotes were in blockquotes rather than just paragraphs

Thanks all

Jon - there's only one quote in it, a specific police instruction.

You're assuming I composed the Entry from written material, ST, but I didn't. Highfield Lane is about three miles from my home, then and now. Dave, Gary and Phil I know personally, two of them as close and lifelong friends. 'Stan' is a made-up name, but the man is real because he came out to his fence and talked to me a few months ago right there in the Lane. (I was there to get the geography right in my head).

I read stuff up to check the detail, sure (hence the comment about contemporary journalism), but I got the bulk of this from interview.

I don't know Lesley Boulton, but she's the one 'italic' character who's there in name in the newspaper records. The photo is very famous, and a little effort will reveal it. She's part of the folklore of the day.

There are always different ways to tell these things, I know. I wanted to capture the impression that the Battle of Orgreave left on me, and to invite people to imagine what it was like to be there. I also hope people will think about the legacy of these events in the life of Britain. That's why I wrote it this way.

This is a good read, I was engrossed

I was just a kid during the miners strike, I'm from Doncaster by the way, which as you may know is full of pit villages, Armthorpe, Rossington and Harworth to name just a few.

Although I was young that strike had a profound effect on me mainly because of an incident that happened on our street.

There was a family who lived down the bottom of our street and the father was a miner, he was one of the miners who had decided to go back to work

At first the incidents, that occured to the family were minor, but still upsetting, they had their windows egged and things like that. Then some one wrote SCAB across their house in huge red letters. They had windows broken when they were out and even had their door kicked in. The final straw for the family was when their son was beaten up badly at school by kids whos fathers were still out on strike, the boy ended up in hospital and the family moved away.

Because I watched all this happened at such a young age it left me with the thought that I would never ever have any sympathy for what happened to the miners.



That may sound harsh, but a person has a right to decide whether or not they want to work and feed their family or stay out on strike, without having to suffer any sort of repercussions of any sort, never mind what that poor family was put through.

Sorry to ramble on, but the sight of those kids (it happened at my school) kicking the living daylights out of that boy just because his father was working will stay with me forever.

Don't apologise Cal. Your impressions are as valid and as powerful as anyone's.

The Strike did divide people, and made people act in extreme ways. These things were widespread in the mining regions and yet somehow remote from other places. Some of us still feel it all deeply, and some remember it only with a kind of detached distaste.

Whenever I meet something I can't rationalise, but that seems to drive people with a single-minded fury (from sectarianism to fox-hunting), I think of the Miners and I can usually start to see the way it all got so deadly serious.

Wouldn't it be great if h2g2 had some way of condensing ideas and feelings into collective Entries, so we really could write the Guide based on how humanity sees all the facets of a thing?

Till then, back to this Entry...

I have my own views of this battle,which I will put on the entry, another time.

to the entry
It's not strictly guide style, and at first glance the lack of headers put me off. But I've read other stuff by Pinniped, and I knew at least the writing would be good,so I stuck with it.

It's a marvellous piece of writing and I hope that we don't get bogged down in a "it's not Guide Style" and "it needs headers" thread.

Some things need to look different, this one conveys such a depth of feeling that to muck about with the presentation would take away some of its power.

anyway,that's what I think.

I liked the orignal version, which I was happy with until the end, similarly with this one.

The only bit I think you'd do better to chop are the last two paragraphs. Whilst I recognise that all of what you are saying is in those last two paragraphs, I don't think they belong in a report.

For the record - I grew up in Kersely, a pit village on the outskirts of Coventry. My gradfather was a pitman, who was locked out during the Great Strike for being a union man, so he fought in the trenches of the first world war to feed his family. I watched a lot of my mates go to work in the pit - saying it was a job for life, and watched their confusion when they shut the pit.

Thanks both

The point of the last two paragraphs is to remind the reader that all this applies to them. It's not something that people can (or IMO should) stand outside of.

I don't see it as a 'report', McKtheD. I think the story is relevant to Britain's democracy and the quality of its nationhood, and so I've tried to make it read that way. But it's not supposed to be a personal opinion either, more like a challenge to everyone to form their own.

As for the Guidelines, whenever any of us writes about things that matter to us, using a voice that expresses our feelings, we're going to stretch the boundaries. For me, that's self-evidently a good thing. For nearly five years now, I've struggled to understand the opposite point of view, and I'm pretty certain now that I never will.

A terrific entry, Pin - and what a coincidence that I just wrote a history essay including the miners' strike.

I would agree with McKay that the final two paragraphs are unnecessary - they're a bit too much like editorialising than is really appropriate in an EG entry.

Another minor stylistic point is that 'police' and 'miners' should not be capitalised when referring to general groups. Oh, and if you could change the curly MS Word quotes to straight quotes that would be great.

Other than that, great job. You've found a good angle for coming at this situation.

You're right Pin - report was a bad choice of word - account would have better suited what I was trying to say.

Glad to see this back in PR, Pinniped. I think it runs much smoother now, and as i said the last time, I like the way the narrative works. I think it adds a balence to the article, as well as making it very readable.

Only one little nitpick... and if you don't change it, it's not a problem. It's just with an MSc in Mineral Exploration, I wince at opencast "not being mining"

"Irony of ironies, the coking plant itself has gone, swallowed up in 1990 by great opencast workings. This isn’t really mining any more, of course. It’s more like picking over the 12 million cubic metres of spoil heaps. Mining has gone for good."

I'd change the last bit to read more like:

"Though this isn’t really mining like it was during the strike era. Hundreds or thousands of men aren't needed every shift to drive the draglines and other plant: it's more like mechanised picking over the 12 million cubic metres of spoil heaps. Mining in the old, labour-intensive way, has gone for good."

Other than that, I like it.

Thanks Rockhound - duly altered.

I'm not sure what you meant about curly quotes, emr, but I removed all the spurious double-quotes (I think). I'll leave the capitals for now, pending further opinion. As you probably guessed, they're there to emphasise the importance of the event as I see it. (They weren't just the pickets and police of less significant strike-scenes - they were THE Pickets and Police at the truly pivotal one).

Last two paragraphs are also still there, for similar reasons. The bit I'm least sure about now is the ice-cream van. Not quite right as a piece of pathos, and also the most obvious non-fit in the italic/plain text structure. Footnote, possibly? Or cut it all together?

It's so good to read something that gets right under the skin of its subject. You shouldn't change a single word, Pin. It's got your personality stamped right through it. I don't want to read any sanitised version.

It led me to find that picture of Lesley - yes I do remember it. If we hadn't had such good journalism on the day we wouldn't remember this event at all.

Curly quotes are these: ’ Straight quotes are these: ' See the difference? The curly quotes just look odd, and it's a pain as a sub if you have to go through and change them all.

I'm still digging my heels in about the final two paragraphs, but I guess I'll wait to see what other people say.

Now I understand, emr. I think I corrected them all (though I don't have an effective way of searching on the character, because the text editor I'm using doesn't differentiate). Like you said, the apostrophes came out curly because the piece was cut and pasted from MS Word.

I'll make sure I go through a plain text source in future. You live and learn.

Thanks for your comments Icy - very heartening.

I started reading this yesterday but got dstracted. I started again a while ago and was gripped. Fantastic.

My family's from North East England and, prior to my dad, were shipbuilding or mining - both hit hard during the 80s. I was 12 at the time of Orgreave and a bit distant, but I remember the effect on my parents vividly. They didn't know what would happen next, or *where* it would happen. It's easy to forget how the nation was affected.