Page 67 of The Way We Are Now

‘Too fucking right!’ Les shouted as Theo pulled out, driving to the field the officer had indicated where cars and coaches were already parked as if at a football away match.

‘Something’s not right,’ I said. ‘I don’t get it. Why are the police actually encouraging us to take part?’

‘Dyson seemed to know there was some big plan…’ Les started.

‘Maybe it’s all going to be peaceful,’ Theo said hopefully. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘Oh, get real,’ Les scoffed. ‘Someone’s let the cat out the bag to the police and they’re laying a trap.’

‘OK,’ I said, ‘Theo, we’re going back. You’re not getting into this.’

‘Look, Les and I will just walk down and see what’s happening,’ Theo said. ‘If there’s any trouble…’

‘Trouble? Of course there’s going to be trouble,’ Les scoffed once more and I could see animation in every part of his being. ‘It’s not a bloody Blue Peter Away Day, you know, lad. You stay here with our Anna. I don’t want her getting into this.’

‘Anna, stay here,’ Theo ordered. ‘I’m going with him.’ He set off at a run after Les who’d suddenly moved at speed down the hill towards the black, pulsating police line. How could so many police have gathered at once? Had John Dyson known about this? It felt like a set-up, not the usual local police on the defensive. It appeared to have morphed into this black tremulous and agitated army just waiting to attack.

‘Theo, stop it,’ I shouted, setting off after him. He was pretty fit through all the squash he played and soon caught up with Les who was both a smoker and – when he could afford it – a beer drinker. I stopped to catch my breath, saw from a distance that thousands – literally thousands – of men were being actively encouraged into a huge area that was multiplying as I watched. It reminded me of the playground game of British Bulldog when two opposing sides of snotty-nosed kids lined up and then charged at each other. But this was no kid stuff.

‘Theo,’ I shouted at the top of my voice. ‘Come back!’ But my command was lost in the ether as a huge crowd of pickets came running down behind me, shouting at me to get out of the fucking way. They were followed by more men, all being herded onto one massive picket line, chased by more police with riot shields and wielding truncheons, some with fierce-looking dogs, straining at their leash to get to some action they’d clearly been trained for. And now came the cavalry, mounted police urging their huge horses forwards, galloping down towards the miners who’d been corralled into acres of fields.

‘Go back where you came from, you stupid bitch!’ A mounted police officer stopped momentarily at my side. ‘Get yourself home!’ He didn’t remain to see whether I was going to obey his orders, and I ran down towards the picket line where both Les and Theo had been swallowed up. I glanced at my watch: the whole thing seemed to have been going on for ever, but it was only just after 8.30 a.m. As I approached the seething mass of humanity, a shout went up and riot police moved forward towards the miners. Jesus, where were Les and Theo? Furious picketers were behind me now, pushing me, carrying me towards the sea of riot shields ahead and then from behind came missiles – bricks, stones, a bottle whizzed past my ear. We were now scores deep and the missiles were hitting us rather than their intended target on the other side.

‘Give over fucking chucking stuff,’ a man, probably my dad’s age, yelled as he turned and ducked. ‘It’s hitting us!’

Above the general mêlée and racket of advancing shouting miners came a rhythmic bang, bang, banging. The cordon of black was drumming its collective batons against the riot shields and advancing. I was terrified, but adrenaline was flowing and I felt anger in equal parts that what should have been a peaceful protest against thousands of men losing the jobs they’d always known was now turning into a bloodbath. For one crazy ridiculous moment I imagined myself on the set of that film, Zulu.

I found myself being carried along with the flow towards the actual village of Orgreave, down a banking, across the railway and up on to the other side, all the time looking and searching for Les and Theo. Les could look after himself, I reckoned; Theo I wasn’t so sure about. What had they been wearing? What should I be looking out for? Both had been in shorts – a heads-up to the blazing June day we knew was forecast – but, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember any distinctive colour. And then the crowd of men parted like the Red Sea as mounted police came galloping through en masse. The great beasts were sweating, frightened and they were coming in all directions. I felt arms around me and for half a second I knew it was Theo, come back for me. But it wasn’t. Just some young miner who’d not only noticed a woman in just a short skirt and T-shirt but realised there was a horse coming at me, but also one behind. We both fell together, narrowly missing the flailing hooves, the man rolling and pulling me not to safety as he’d hoped, but under the feet of a charging, now reversing crowd.

‘My brother,’ I managed to get out. ‘My boyfriend.’

‘Aye, well,’ my rescuer replied. ‘Every man for himself now.’

And in the wake of the charging horses came the police, well protected in full riot gear and with batons and shields, setting upon the fleeing, falling men. One man, dressed only in shorts – his singlet long abandoned in the morning heat and tied around his head – was dragged by his vest and hair to the ground and then attacked by two, three, four officers, before they handcuffed him and carried him away.

‘You can’t do that,’ I yelled as another man was punched repeatedly in the body and face by two officers.

‘We have the power to do just that,’ one of the officers hissed at me. ‘This scum needs clearing. Now get yourself off, before we take you in as well.’

I found my hand being grasped by the young miner who clearly now thought it his duty to be my protector, and who pulled back in the direction of where we’d come.

‘Fucking idiots,’ an older man said as we stopped momentarily to watch a group of miners dismantling a stone wall for a makeshift roadblock before setting alight a car from a nearby scrapyard on the outskirts of Orgreave. Then we were running again, running away from the carnage, from the battle, from the obvious set-up that must have been planned by God knew who.

‘Anna, Anna!’ I quickly turned, praying it was Theo who was behind me. It took me a few seconds of searching the crowd to realise it was Les. He was bleeding from a cut to his forehead but, apart from that, appeared to be all in one piece.

‘Where’s Theo? Where is he?’

‘Anna, I don’t know. I tried to find him, honest – God, Dad’s going to kill me letting you…’

‘Never mind Dad,’ I hissed, grabbing at his arm which I now saw was also bleeding, before searching behind him, scanning the limping retreating defeated men, for Theo. ‘Where’s Theo? What have you done with him? Where is he? Is he all right?’ I shook Les’s arm and I saw he was frightened, the adrenaline that had taken him off towards the fight now depleted.

‘I don’t know, Anna. He was with me, and then we were in the middle of all the bloody horses, and one was just about on top of me, rearing up. Theo pushed me out of the way, shouting summat about he knew all about horses… and then he went down…’

‘What, Les? What? What do you mean, he went down?’

‘He sort of disappeared under all these hooves and, honestly, Anna, I stopped and tried to help him, but this policeman hit me with his truncheon and I went down too.’ He turned to show me an ugly bump on his scalp which was bleeding profusely down the back of his neck and onto his white T-shirt.

He suddenly turned very white himself, beads of sweat accumulating both on his forehead and above his top lip before trickling into the moustache he’d been cultivating and tending with pride for the past month or so.