David Felton: 'Tunnel vision' of the shy loner who became an Eighties icon

In one of the more memorable pieces of labour movement theatre, a grim-faced Arthur Scargill sat in the conference hall listening to the electricians' union leader Eric Hammond describe British miners as "lions led by donkeys".

Uproar ensued. After all, for one of the brothers to display such open disdain for another union leader was unusual – that was normally kept for the bars or whispered asides to journalists. But there was no doubt that many in the hall believed the pugnacious Hammond had a point.

Scargill, who held centre stage for a year in this country's history, leading a devastating strike, could not really expect to be the darling of the media or the middle classes. But it was surprising how many of his political allies did not have a good word to say for the miners' leader.

He was an "odd sort", at one time shy and then arrogant. A man who had the disconcerting habit of referring to himself in the third person. A loner who had little truck with the time-honoured union tradition of dirty deals sealed as the alcohol flowed, and who fought on principle.

At times during the miners' strike, it seemed he was not only taking on the Thatcher government but the trade union establishment as well.

He maintained an isolation in his Sheffield redoubt – one of his first actions after taking over the NUM presidency in 1981 was to move the union headquarters from London's Euston Road to Yorkshire, surrounded by a small band of loyal cronies.

An eloquent and forceful speaker, a ripple of expectation would run around the hall when Scargill went to the rostrum at a TUC or Labour Party conference.

Without doubt, he was box office for the best part of three decades, with acres of newsprint devoted to his every foible. He even got an entry in a dictionary of cockney rhyming slang. To Arthur Scargill is to gargle (drink), which is ironic because he rarely drank more than a half-pint of bitter.

He liked being compared to A J Cook, who led the miners during the 1926 general strike but ended up a broken man. He shares with Cook a single-mindedness described by one exasperated left-wing union leader as "tunnel vision. Arthur can see where he wants to go and nothing, but nothing, will make him deviate from that course." That should make for an interesting (semi) retirement.

David Felton covered the NUM as labour correspondent of 'The Times' and labour editor of 'The Independent'.