In memory of the miners not Maggie!

I know I am now at the other side of the world and that this statue commemorates the lives lost in NZ pits but.......

This shot had to be my blip today and my blip had to be about Maggie Thatcher! I was a teenager of 14/15 when she came to power in 1979 - a bolshie one at that. CND marches, Labour Party Meetings, the lot. I was truly gutted when she got elected. Even as a 15 year old I could see the writing on the wall. I was born and brought up in a steel town, a town amidst a sea of coal mines (one tends to rely on the other) In less than a decade Margaret Thatcher had destroyed both, as well as the railways, the power industry. She all but wrecked the health system and the education system and changed society irrevocably. Complete mining villages disappeared, the work forces decimated and demoralized. Poverty and deprivation became common place in these towns and villages, back to the times of the family owned pits of the 19th century. The woman was loathed (or loved of course if you were a wealthy, middle class or upper class southerner).
I cannot mourn her passing. I feel sympathy for her family and her friends, whatever she was as a Prime Minister she was always someones mother, daughter, wife etc but for me, well words cannot express my feelings. 30 years down the line I can only feel an overwhelming sadness for what Britain lost between 1979-1990. We didn't only lose whole communities we lost a sense of morality and love for our fellow man. The man, woman and child in trouble, who might need help, care or support. Margaret Thatchers legacy is a generation of selfish, self centred people who are still allowing the erosion of basic human rights and needs at the expense of money and progress.

Ooopps not really a rant but... rant over :-)