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I was out on the stones for the whole of the 1960 strike,like a lot of others I was flat broke and living on good will. I was amazed at the bitterness shown by some men toward the scabs. I was of a left wing persuasion (dad had been a shop steward) but I could never countenance violence against scabs. I am not a starry eyed dreamer, I have grown up with The British Road to Socialism,The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist's et al,but I was horrified to see an attack on a litttle Scots guy aboard the Carinthia . His crime was to hav e worked while we were out;his punishment was a savage kicking ,in the dark, as we sailed down the Mersey. I did intervene because my whole upbringing led me to eschew violence. I have met men who carried little black books which contained the names of scabs, I detested them. I was a socialist and a trade unionist ,and in my experience this type of creature never fought for the rights of mankind ,they just sought to perpetrate violence against those weaker than themselves. And before you ask, I was never a Bosses man, just someone who believed in a square deal,
BrianD
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neville
I remember the strike,I came hoewhile it was 3 weeks along and stayed out another 10 the meetings were on the bomb site by the seamans home and after we used too walk around the town protesting the ship owners ,I think there was about 3 thousand of us out on strike . I had a few bob when I came home during it so I treated the ones I knew in the pub after thewalk .soon wound up broke like the rest .and looked forward too the meager strike pay we got of the pool . after the strike a lot of us went to barrow and joined the Oriana on her maiden voyage,a great ship and the most modern I ever sailed on for the crew quarters ,even had piped in TV,s WOW