Marriage and the miners' strike
by Deborah Thomas
"My boyfriend worked at Cwm Coking works during the miners' strike. We were about to get married in the October and decided to go ahead with it anyhow, but obviously had to cut down on some things - like a honeymoon - we had a washing machine instead.
It was our first year of purchasing a house and the building societies were obviously a lot more understanding in those days as we had to freeze the payments for several months because we were surviving on my wages (which weren't huge). On top of this my boyfriend's dad was Chief Super in the police force so on the day of the wedding we had striking miners and serving police officers.
It all went very well, no hiccups at all and everyone got on really well. We have been married 25 years in October this year. There was quite a bit of worry and strife to start our married life but we got through it."
