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Dewi Lewis South Wales.

PICKETS from Mardy and Trelewis pits turned away the day shift at Bedwas colliery in Gwent on Tuesday. On Sunday, the Bedwas lodge had voted to work normally with only 14 votes for strike action.

Seventeen other pits in South Wales voted not to strike at the weekend, but by Tuesday, only Bedwas and Cynheidre colliery in West Glamorgan were in doubt.

Coal was still being raised at Cynheidre after fifty men on the day shift crossed picket lines. But the afternoon shift was picketed out.

After these successful pickets in the morning, the Bedwas Lodge held a meeting of all three shifts in the afternoon. One hour of furious arguments later, the Lodge Secretary walked out of the meeting in disgust at the strike-breaking attitude of the majority and joined the pickets outside.

He was followed by about 50 men who declared they would go on strike regardless of the way the vote went.

Eventually the meeting broke up and agreed not to work until a further meeting on Wednesday.

The pit will be picketed by the Bedwas strikers to make sure no-one goes in on the day shift.

Anger at the scabbing role the media has played in this dispute was clear as newsmen and photographers were warned off the picket lines.

Eric Price, Mardy Lodge Secretary told Socialist Organiser:

"If the rest of the Bedwas men don't come out, and defy the strike call from the area executive, we will picket them out.

"As soon as it's completely stopped down here we're off to the other areas. As far as we're concerned we'll picket out Nottinghamshire."

The strike will bite quickly in Wales with less than seven weeks supplies at one power station.

The overtime ban was causing big problems for the Coal Board, with 35,000 tonnes - a quarter of normal weekly production -being lifted from stocks every week to supplement falling production.

The NUR and the National Union of Seamen have pledged their full support in stopping the movement of coal stocks.

The speed at which the stragglers come into line in AT LAST it was time for the people to hit back.

After years of witch-hunts, degradation and muck-raking, the press has finally been called to account for its actions. It has been branded as fit for the gutter and attacked for dragging names through the mud.

It isn't the Sun that is the centre of attention and it wasn't Scargill or Benn dishing it out.

The paper in the dock was the Sunday Times and the poor, maligned innocents who needed protection were none other than Dennis Thatcher and son Mark.

The relationsimp between father and son is a close one.

They like to do things together.

Like share bank accounts.

All fathers and sons like their privacy. Time to spend South Wales be sent to now crucial.

so the pickets can Nottinghamshire is Ellen Taylor reports South Yorkshire.

JUST about every pit in South Yorkshire was already out by the time the official call for action came. Each had their own complaints.

Manvers was working to rule over tea break times and management weren't too happy about this and forced a confrontation, leading to the men taking strike action and the lock-out of adjoining pits.

Yorkshire 1 Main miners were being asked to hand pick a usually machined coalface, cordoned off by symbolic white lines. One miner said the last time he'd seen white lines was in the days of private mines.

It was significant that the only pit not already out, Corton Wood, was promptly told by the NCB that they would be "down the lane" in six weeks' time.

Already the redundancy offers are rolling in. Miners at Bilthorpe have received individual letters offering pay-offs of £1,000 per year worked.. But Yorkshire miners are totally solid. Only token pickets are necessary and flying pickets are active in other areas.

Even the local chippies are supporting them, with fish and chips at half-price.

Stan Crooke Scotland.

IN the run-up to the growing miners' strike, the media gave the impression of widespread opposition in the twelve Scottish pits to the strike call, by focusing attention on two pits in particular.

At Polkemmet a majority of the miners voted in a pit-head ballot on the Friday on which the strike began, against going on strike, as did a majority of the craftsmen.

At Bilston Glen, the biggest colliery in Scotland, scuffies broke out at a meeting on the Saturday when the pit's NUM delegate issued instructions for the strike in the absence of taking a vote on the question.

The impression of widespread opposition was strengthened by claims from the NCB to the effect that ten of the twelve mines together without nosy newspapers poking their noses in where they are not wanted.

The rest of the world's press had its priorities right. It was quite rightly investigating major international scandals - like what Botham keeps in his kit bag. or what Arthur Scargill will do to miners who try to go to work.

But two Sunday Times reporters set out to hound this innocent family. The paper published details of a Thatcher bank account.

Campaign is hardly the word for it. It is part of the most deferential press investigation ever, to ask most politely - and if she does not consider it too much trouble - whether Mrs Thatcher might possibly see her way to would be working normally, despite the strike call, and that 50% of the 14,000 Scottish miners were opposed to strike action.

But the claim was clearly nonsense: even before the strike began, only eight Scottish pits were working normally. (Polmaise and Seafield were on strike, and miners at Frances and Bogside were laid off).

By Monday evening, picketing at Barony and Killoch had brought these pits to a standstill. 70 miners crossed the picket lines at Bilston Glen to work. 70 miners working in the whole Scottish coalfield is a far cry from the mass revolt against the union predicted by the media and NCB.

In Staffordshire, Wolstanton NUM president John Lockett said (speaking in a personal capacity): •The Midlands leadership has been fudging; calling for a strike but hoping! miners will vote against it. At the Woolstanton Colliery, miners were laid off on Monday and Tuesday because repair work had not been done due to the overtime ban.

•'There seems little doubt that we will be out at the end of the week, we're just waiting for the pickets to arrive and we'll be out. It's just a pity we're not getting any leadership at local level"

Tony Dale moved this resolution at the National Organisation of Labour Students National Committee.

are now moving towards a national strike. For students this strike must be an important priority NOLS calls on NUS and Labour Clubs to build support amongst students for the miners' fight. NOLS must fight to open students unions and NUS facilities e.g. printing, etc., to the miners.

NOLS must build financial support for the strike by fighting for collections in students unions and for students unions. to donate money to the strike fund.

NOLS must also campaign for active support by students on the picket lines.

(Passed, three for; none against; ten abstentions).

Daily : Mail EXPRESS FINANCIAL TIMES Pickets in Yorkshire than scandal about about the Thatchers.

The only underhand methods 9W50-11 10 3 199. 05;-2 90-0 00440 54p•0 a 302200 has turned attention away fron the relationship between th Prime Minister and her famil! fortune, towards the question o press ethics.

Not that this inhibits thi press from its familiar tiradi against the miners, complete wit angry wives, allegations of intimi dation and cameras peering fur ther up the nose of Scargill thai the Sunday Times has venturer into the financial affairs of thi Thatchers.

The Sunday Times shoul stick to this good, clean whole some fun, and leave the Thatcher alone. Next time something smell a little fishy about the PM° family financial affairs, the Sun day Times should do what ans decent Tory journalist would de - make an excuse and leave.