'CORBY born 1 April 1950, brutally slain 1979' was the slogan on the small black coffin carried by hait a dozen Corby school kids demonstration through the town last Thursday.
Later the same afternoon the Steel Corporation formaly announced that the Corby steel works would close, that the last basin or lou steel would De poured into its mould, in March 1980. Their announcement death-knell of a steel works, it is a threat to the whole town. only there because the steel mill is there.
Corby was nothing more than a Northamptonshire village until the steel works were opened. was purpose built to workers, mainly from Scotland and some irom Wales, escape unemployment.
These antecedents are still obvious - the high proportion of Glaswegian accents, prominence Strathclyde Hotel (the tallest buildine in the lown) anet the orderly street plan give a lot away.
Most people have quite a grim view of new towns — concrete jungles gangs of alienated roaming the streets. eight miles from Corby, that's what they think: 'Don't take a camera to Corby, they don't like photographed and they'll probably smash it',. 'If you leave a car parked overnight in Corby it won't be there in the morning' And so on.
But that isn't Corby.
KAREN is a steelworker in Corby.
She was very angry about the plans for the plant.
'People can but what are we going to do about I. Inere are peoble wno are there working today while we are here. They ought to be ashamed of It's their jobs fighting for. Next time they all have to be out."
then a local tonshire countryside which the bosses trees just the Corby has made that completely clear. 10,000 The town house the Steel bosses began.
Surrounded wno moved to Took place, youth In Kettering, works, employing being SHIL believe it will stop there.
plan in Leyland doest't stop morning Confederation, the Iron involved at BSC make speeches, There's no rail station so for a visitor it's a train to Kettering and bus. The half hour journey is through rolling Northampextends right up and into Corby. In the town centre you can see out into the open countryside — even the steel mill is only a series of industrial chimneys emerging from behind a horizon of There is no doubt that the new inhabitants of Corby like their town, they want to go on living there. It may not be paradise, but compared to the urban squalor of most industrial areas charm. The demonstration on Thursday morning inhabitants of Corby marched through the town centre as the talks between the iron and stee trades union leaders and the British There.
Graham House, where the talks was completelv surrounded by police in full battle gear; there were no controntalions felt that even the police realised they looked more than slightly ridiculous.
The Corby iron and steel works employ 11,000 people, approximately area. two-thirds of the working population of the town. British Steel announced the closure of the smelting and ore 6,000 people, "CORBY NEWTOWN 'There are seven of us in the office and five of us are here today virtually everyone who's in the union has come out. There's a skeleton staff left in the plant. Some of it's still working, but about 75 per cent are out here this morning.
"The thing is that there's nothing much else in Corby if the steel goes. Most of our families work there and it's hard to find jobs here already. t ney. say inal tne aammstralon 1s staying but quite honestly succeed. in closing down the steel works then we'll be next in line whatever they say now. And if our jobs go we just won't get another job The number of women and young people the demonstration particularly noticeable. There was no question but that the whole town was on the move, the end of the steel plant means the death of Corby and no one wants that Apart from steel there is only the Golden Wonder taller couple of small shoe factories in the There were substantial delegations from all of these. Seven of the town's biggest stores closed for the morning.
general strike didn't have much effect on the meeting at Graham House. After the union leaders and bosses had wined and dined together through most of the day, a firm statement that the plant would close was the only GuLCOnnC demonstrations to turn back the tide. support from BL Cowley, called for a policy of occupation to prevent BSC closing down the works. This would if they be a decisive first step for the Corby keep the prevent the company stripping the and
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the same time, meeting.
ON THURSDAY 1 November 10,000 marched through Corby New Town demanding an end to threats to close the steel mill employs two-thirds of the working population. At in the town, steel bosses were meeting with union bureaucrats over bottles of wine, behind a cordon of a thousand police. Closure plans were all that emerged from their
people which