Mary Luxton left the train at Lime St. and told the taxi driver "take me to the picket line". She hoped the police would arrest her with the dockers, but it didn't work out that way.
Seventy six years ago, Mary was ten when the miners came out in Durham. "We were starving. The Salvation Army came around with soup. I had a big jug, and told them I was going to feed the whole street. A policeman hit me, but the miners took care of it and he could never go back on the beat around there again."
When she was 13½, Mary ran away to London. She'd had no schooling, but taught herself to read. After working as a cleaner in nursing homes she became a hotel "floor waitress", bringing breakfast in bed to the guests. Sexual abuse was common, and pregnant chambermaids were sent to the workhouse. One day, sensing trouble, Mary took a colleague with her to the room where a naked man was "ready for action. We threw the tray of food at him, snatched the £5 note he'd placed by the bed, and ran off. We thought we'd get the sack. Instead, we had the time of our lives for a fortnight on that fiver."
Mary had the dockers in stitches with that one before rousing them to cheers with the confession "Comrades, if I ever do meet Maggie Thatcher, I'd be willing to die in order to kill her. I wish I were younger but I'm not down yet. You're just like our miners used to be." When she told the mass meeting "you'll win," the men rose in a standing ovation.
Next month Mary Luxton will attend her first Labour Party Conference,
and intends to speak to Government Ministers about the dockers. They'd better
wear body armour.
