Steel Cages

The year was 1984, and Britain was split down its seams. Coalfields across the north sat silent, their chimneys unbreathing. On the streets, however, there was no silence at all. Strikers clashed with police in bitter demonstrations, fists and batons hammering out the soundtrack of a nation at war with itself.

In Sheffield, after a long, ugly afternoon outside a colliery gate, the shouting hadn’t quite stopped echoing when a miner named Dave Turner ducked into the council offices. He needed the loo, somewhere quiet to catch his breath before heading back to the picket line. His knuckles were bloodied, his voice hoarse from chanting.

At the same moment, Sergeant Alan Hughes—helmet under his arm, still sweating from the chaos outside—was heading up to a briefing room on the third floor. He spotted Dave from the corner of his eye: big lad, black with coal dust, the unmistakable gait of a man who’d been standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his mates at the front.

Alan stiffened. Dave squared his shoulders. Neither spoke as they stepped into the lift.

The doors closed, humming, and the box jolted upwards—then stopped dead between floors with a sick metallic groan. The lights flickered. Silence, except for the faint ticking of the motor.

“Bloody marvellous,” Dave muttered, slamming the wall with his fist.

Alan stabbed at the buttons, jaw set. “Brilliant. Stuck in a tin can with one of you lot.”

Dave turned on him. “One of me lot? We’re just trying to keep our jobs, mate. Feed our families. You lot swing your sticks like we’re animals.”

Alan’s voice was sharp, defensive. “You throw bricks. You smash windows. You think we like standing there, shields up, getting pelted?”

They glared at each other in the dim light. For a long moment, neither spoke. Then Dave gave a short, bitter laugh.

“You’ve got kids?”

Alan hesitated, then nodded. “Two. Little girl and a lad. Eight and six.”

Dave shifted against the wall, his anger softening. “I’ve got one, nearly two. My missus is at home wondering how she’ll pay for nappies if this carries on.”

Something in the confined air seemed to ease. Alan sighed, loosening his grip on the helmet.

“You know, I didn’t join the force for this. Thought I’d be helping people. Instead I spend my days chasing you blokes around, like we’re two armies. Feels like we’re all just… being used.”

Dave rubbed his face with his dirty hands. “Tell me about it. Half my pit’s been here for generations. My dad worked it, his dad too. Now Thatcher wants to shut it down like it’s nothing. That’s our whole life, gone.”

The lift creaked, a heavy shudder reminding them both how small the space was. Alan gave a weary chuckle. “Funny, isn’t it? Out there, we’d be at each other’s throats. In here, we’re just two blokes trapped in a box.”

Dave looked at him, properly this time. The copper wasn’t much older than he was. He saw tired eyes, not a uniform.

“Reckon we’ve got more in common than they want us to believe,” Dave said quietly.

Alan nodded. “Divide and rule, isn’t it? Keep us fighting each other so we don’t start asking bigger questions.”

For a while they sat in silence, listening to the hum of distant voices outside the shaft. Then, with a sudden lurch, the lift groaned back into motion.

The doors opened on the third floor. Alan stepped out first, adjusting his helmet, sliding the mask of duty back into place. Dave followed, shoulders squared again, miner’s pride intact.

They didn’t shake hands, didn’t exchange names. But as their eyes met one last time, there was something unspoken—a recognition that, in another life, without uniforms or picket lines, they might have been mates.

The doors closed between them, and the war outside carried on.