BRIGG SUPPORT FOR SCUNTHORPE STEEL INDUSTRY

Something unique happened at Brigg Town Council's monthly meeting on Monday in the Angel Suite.
A steel union representative addressed councillors from the public gallery about the Save Our Steel campaign. 
Due to dumping of foreign-made steel on the market, and other factors, major job cuts are planned locally by Tata, owners of the Scunthorpe works.
Link to full details of what the steelman told Brigg Town Council
Brigg Blog approached the speaker at the end of the meeting, to introduce ourselves. We told him how we'd worked in the public relations department at Scunthorpe steelworks from 1974 to 1979.
We left BSC during the steel strike and started work at the Lincolnshire Times, in Brigg, during January 1980. Day one saw us on duty at our first meeting of Brigg Town Council, when it used to meet in an ornate wood-lined chamber off Bigby Street. Yes, 35 years ago!
The Save Our Steel speaker was once employed at Shelton steelworks, Stoke-on-Trent. And during our time in the PR department we used to handle publicity for this Midlands plant, which was part of the Scunthorpe Division of BSC.  It's a small world!
Shelton was an integrated plant - ironmaking, steelmaking and rolling mills - just like Scunthorpe's Appleby-Frodingham, Redbourn and Normanby Park works (Lysaght's).
There was a long and bitter fight in the 1970s to try and keep all parts of "Shelton Bar"  open. 
A truly wonderful statue of a steelmaker in full protective clothing was made and became the icon of the campaign. Monday's speaker, like us, remembers it well.