Scargill joined the Young Communist League in 1955 , becoming its Yorkshire District Chair in 1956 and shortly after a member of its National Executive Committee . In 1957 he was elected NUM Yorkshire Area Youth Delegate , and attended the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow as a representative of the Yorkshire miners . In 1958 , he attended the World Federation of Trade Unions youth congress in Prague . In a 1975 interview with '' New Left Review '' Scargill said : In 1961 , he was elected a member of the Woolley NUM Branch Committee . Scargill joined the Labour Party in 1962 . He regularly attended Workers ' Educational Association ( WEA ) classes and Co-operative Party educational programmes , and in 1962 , undertook a three-year , part-time course at the University of Leeds , where he studied economics , industrial relations and social history . In 1965 he was elected Branch Delegate from Woolley to the Yorkshire NUM Area Council , and in 1969 was elected a member of the Yorkshire NUM Area Executive Committee . Although he never worked at Barrow Colliery in his home village , he was involved in the politics of the branch , where the membership was much more left-wing than in the conservative Woolley Colliery . In 1970 , he was elected a member of the regional committee of the Co-operative Retail Services in Barnsley and a delegate to its national conference . He also represented the Barnsley Co-op at Cooperative congresses
6th World Festival of Youth and Students
6th World Festival of Youth and Students
Arthur Scargill