Death of Anne Scargill at 83.

 

Anne Scargill

Anne Harper, the former wife of the miner's leader Arthur Scargill, has died at the age of 83.

I think I much preferred Anne Scargill to her husband Arthur. I think she deserved a VC for being married to him for long as she did. Anne was head and shoulders above many women MPs in today's Tory-lite Labour Party. She wasn't afraid to be seen on a picket line and was a co-founder of 'Women Against Pit Closures'. Anne said that the only thing that she had in common with her husband was a love of dogs and their politics. She said her married life with Arthur Scargill had been rather boring. She admitted: "I suppose I should have known what I was letting myself in for. On our first date he took me to a Young Communist League debate with the Tories."

In 1996, Anne was made redundant from her £7,000 a year clerks' job at the Co-op, but, finding that the business had advertised for 50 more workers, she took the Co-op to an employment tribunal and won her job back and stayed until retirement.

The late Yorkshire miners' MP, Mick Walsh, recalled meeting Anne on a train in the early 1980s. During the journey, she said to him, "Arthur needs to loosen up. Can't you and the lads take him out one night and get him drunk." The couple separated and divorced in 2001 when Anne reverted to her maiden name of Harper.