This way, please. Drive safely, lads. They followed the police instructions and the arrows and signposts directing them to the working men’s club down the Catcliffe end of the plant, parking a fair distance away still because Het was being precious about his bloody car. The picket was building this far back too. Hundreds were gathered here. Union brass with their fuzzing walkie-talkies. Maybe thousands. Maths was never Lawrence’s strong suit.
The police numbers had also swollen. Down the drastic Orgreave Road Lawrence could see them lining the way, reaching the fortress of the coke works and those menacing columns, the scorched chimneys intruding madly upon the sky.
Lawrence didn’t know what was going to come out of his mouth if he opened it. He stuck close to Darren Roach and ear-wigged on the men’s conversation.
“You all right, Het?” Bob was saying.
“I always get like this on picket,” Het replied, failing to lower his voice. “And I’m aware for the lad.”
Bob said, “We’ll look after him.” As if Lawrence was some kid.
“Ta, Bob. You been coming here recently?” Het said.
“Our Darren has.”
“You’ve to come expecting a hiding.”
Het pointed at the urine-dark bruise spread across his neck.
“Aye,” said Darren. “That’s why I were surprised you brought him.”
Happening to glance over at Lawrence, Het changed the subject. “Reminds me of Saltley Gate,” he said.
“Saltley?” said Darren, cottoning on. “How old are you, Het?”
Lawrence’s uncle had to think about it. “I must have been twenty-nine, my first strike. Scargill were leading from up front. Dad were spitting feathers, you should have seen him. It changed our lives, a win like that.”
“Goodbye Teddy Heath,” said Bob.
“We did ourselves proud.”
Bob said, “They must be mad scabbing here in strike’s heartland. Bloody death wish. Sandy Coates were only saying the other day that Maggie’ll crack if we can stop her steel. This could be it, lads. What do you reckon, Lawrence?”
Lawrence nodded vaguely at Bob as Het and Darren swigged from their tins of beer.
The police directed everyone towards the junction at Poplar Way, where the lorries accessed the Sheffield Parkway. The noise was enormous here, the topside in front of the cokeworks. All the crowds.
Lawrence had to stare. Had a factory ever looked so massive? Had there ever been as many police waiting in one place?
“You all right?” said Het.
“Aye.”
“Stick close to me.”
“I said I’m fine.”
At last he knew what the pickets were like. Police everywhere, more police than Lawrence knew existed. The protesters reached the back end of the huge field, to what Bob said was a steep embankment ahead of some train tracks and a narrow bridge leading into Orgreave village.
“We’ll stay here then get at them from afar,” said Bob, his thick hand resting on Lawrence’s shoulder. Everyone felt like they had a right to touch him. “You best keep your wits about you, son.”
That much was plain as a pikestaff. In the heat of this day there was zero wind. Ahead of the ranks of picketers was a land of dying grass. Then the navy blue began, swathes of police officers that must have been at least ten or twenty men deep. An even greater horde waited on the other side of that, while to the left of the enormous coke plant was a command post, police forces busying themselves around a marquee with what looked like refreshment tables inside, tents beyond, Portakabins and horseboxes dotted further away. The edges of the field, lined against the woods on one side, were guarded by men with dogs. On the other side, guarding the hill, were yet more men with yet more dogs. Uncle Het was rubbing seriously at his scar.
TV crews were also arranged throughout the tophill. Postings of focus aimed cameras at the miners. One crew carried their equipment down the lines, filming until they arrived at a blimp of a man with his top off, holding a placard. The camera focused, rotate and pivot. It was the first time Lawrence had seen a TV crew.
A cheer went up as the camera was struck by a football. One of the crew picked the ball up and tried to remonstrate in the direction it had come from, but his voice was overwhelmed by the profuse hacking laughter of working blokes in a pack.
One of the crew kicked the ball into the air. Arcing, the white sphere was camouflaged against the delicate cloud before re-appearing, thud, upon the grass.
Boiling. Loads of people had their tops off. Tough blokes with broad shoulders, sinew. Soft blokes with round shoulders, belly. Plenty of folk were sunbathing, chatting. There were women here and the odd youngster, too; it was pretty convivial, actually. Union men patrolled the field’s limits, directing picketers. And there was a megaphone, it must be Arthur Scargill’s. You couldn’t hear a word he was saying. It was like he was shouting into his hands while someone pinched his nostrils.
“Is my dad here, Het?” asked Lawrence, but Het and Bob were chatting and Darren Roach was ahead, smoking a cigarette. Lawrence scanned the crowd for people still wearing their tops, because his dad never took his shirt off. Arthur was embarrassed about the tattoos he’d had done when he was younger. A domino on the left shoulder. The huge march hare illustrating his back.
The crowd edged forward, front lines of police and picket drawing closer to one another. Although it wasn’t time for the lorries yet, Lawrence felt nervous. He twitched his toes. A stone lay temptingly in the grass.
As if the police forces had read his mind, a cry went up, the emergence of the thunderhead.
“What was that?” Lawrence said, coughing to disguise the nervy way his voice teetered.
“Reinforcements,” Bob replied, staring ahead, his neck mizzled hideously with sweat.
A clutch of police officers bedecked in riot gear arrived, the jogging phalanx sending a charge through the crowd. There was cursing and defiance as the main bobbies in uniform stepped back to form second and third rows, and the armoured squad took their place up front.
“What’s that lot doing here?” Het said.
Replied Bob, “Fucked if I know.”
Bob leant against Lawrence’s ear, his damp breath warm on both lobe and neck. He said “This is where they give it the Zulu, son.”
No time to question what he meant. The new riot police began to hammer their large rectangular shields with their batons. They yelled and pounded them, and the noise of it drowned everything out. Terror squad. Intimidator. It was like when two trains pass one another in a tunnel.
Missiles were the pickets’ response. Bottles and rocks were hurled from disparate parts of the crowd, projectiles searing overhead and landing near the police huddle some forty yards away. The picket seemed to swell. Yawning, it covered most of the field. Lawrence was also being pushed forward. The current was sending the canoe towards the precipice.
Het reached out and grabbed him. Lawrence tried to shrug him off, but this only increased the strength of his uncle’s grip.
“Come here. We’ll not get dragged in. We’re just here to persuade them flaming lorries to stop.”
“How can we do that if we can’t speak to ’em?”
“That’s police’s line of thinking.”
“Are they allowed to just block the way like that?”
“No, but they do it anyway.”
Chanting. The words were no doubt meant to inspire, but the way they were sung, Lawrence supposed it was the venom of it. A sentiment pitched somewhere around the defiant mark was emerging in more dangerous terrain.