Women’s liberation and the miners strike 40 years on

[Karensalright]

Local radio making a podcast, recorded today at my house with my striking miner husband. For the forty years on thing. Brought it all back to me. There was a song we working class women sang,

there were a few lines in it i thought you all might like. From we are women we are strong, a miners wives song

”we don’t need government approval for anything we do
we don’t need their permission to have a point of view
we don’t need anyone to tell us what to think or say
we have strength enough and wisdom of our own
to go our own way”

thats my outburst for today ….sob sob .

I was living in the south and have really vivid memories of meetings held for miner's wives' action groups to come and talk and explain what was happening. Awe inspiring the way women self organised.

Not sure what area you are in but have you seen this video? https://vimeo.com/62770473

And the song for those who haven't heard it http://www.unionsongclub.co.uk/lyrics/lyrics41.html

On a personal level it was seeing in news reports the actions of the police at the Battle of Orgreave that politicised me (and the Queen?!). Queen horrified by police conduct at the Battle of Orgreave* *

Sorry @Karensalright should have said thanks to you and the women you organised with.

What a brilliant song, thanks OP.

Fascinating film, too, IwantToRetire.

This brings back memories! Difficult times, but the solidarity was inspiring. Well done, OP. Not forgotten.

Thank you all for caring, did not know the deep scars my husband and i have till the podcast. But hey ho we are alive and thriving.

We used to collect for the miners outside our local Safeway. I did the bar at the Perverts for the Pits gig in Stoke Newington. The Bronski Beat and Ben Zephaniah. A Notts miner made a very emotional speech. Can't believe it'll be 40 years.

I remember that song and others, organising collections, supporting, pits closing. Active with LWAPC. I lived near Golborne at the time. Dire days indeed @Karensalright

I don't have a mining background. But I've spent all my adult life living in the NE and the last 15 years in a former pit village. My kids have grown up with classmates from mining families and the culture and memories run deep.

Dc1 plays in a band and marched at the miner's gala in the summer. The group he is with do a set of NE folk songs, mostly mining of course, set to samba and brass. It is brilliant and so poignant. I love the lyrics. I love folk generally but local songs really strike a chord. Hearing them sing things like Farewell Johnny Miner is beautiful. I can't remember the name of another of them, total mind blank, but the lyrics "There's many a marra missing now, because they would not listen".

It is so evocative. I think for those of us who don't share that heritage it can all feel a long time ago but of course it isn't, it is so recent and you have to wonder, really, how much has changed. If mining were still as widespread as it was, would conditions actually be any better or would greed still win the day? Is it just that now there are not as many people to exploit?

Anyway. Songs remind us of people's stories and how much power they have. I was listening to a song about english mill workers striking and refusing to work cotton that had been picked by slaves. Powerful stuff.

This is a bit outing but as this is a small group on this thread. I actually met my husband in the strike, it was a midlands pit scablands all around us and not many men on strike at my husbands pit, no pit village to speak of so no community cohesion for the miners. The striking men had a name they adopted and their own banner made. Was very isolating at the time, guess thats why it feels extra raw when looking back

I'm sorry to here that the experience of that time left you feeling traumatised. That is really sad.

But at least, (which I assume is good!!) during that crisis you found a husband to share your life with.

And importantly for both of you, the local radio podcast means that your part of that historical time will not be forgotten.

My mum died some years ago (a "good" death, don't be sorry) but the strikes changed her profoundly. She went from a woman who was defined by her family to one defined by her beliefs.

Her proudest moment was being asked to join the miners as they walked back into work after the strike, with the banners and band.

I had the honour of giving the books she'd kept of donations and payments to social kitchens etc. To the NUM after she died.

A terrible, terrible abandonment of the north. And, may I be forgiven, one of my greatest joys was telling Mum she had outlived Thatcher and the she (Mum) was still very loved, unlike that other woman.

Her funeral was standing room only, and at 83, that's some achievement.

Thank you @Karensalright for bringing back these memories.

Am glad i posted but feel a bit like me me, when the pain was everywhere. To you @user1471453601 and your heroic mum i raise a glass. I so remember the footage of the men returning to their pits on the news i cried so much. I was young 23/4 at the time.

My husband and the other 29 band of men, could not go back in because the local scab union said they owed a years worth of subs.

Scargill took it into high court and won so they returned a month later.

There was no end to the local unions betrayals, and cowardice. The podcast i mentioned wanted to talk about these things.

on the bright side went to the gala once with our men and banner and everyone applauded us all the way there and back again. Made friends across the pits at the time. A lot of the money we raised went up north as we didn’t need it all

I lived in a pit village on the outskirts of Doncaster during the strike. I remember my school friends who were from miners' families being fed for free at the local school during the holidays and waiting in the playground for them. The fundraising at the local working men's club and the miners' wives collecting food outside Sainsbury's in Doncaster town centre. I remember arguments between strike breakers and strikers being carried on by their children in the playground, resulting in nasty name calling and physical altercations. I didn't live there all the time during that period, I was sent to live in a completely different environment with my father who saw footage on the news and was worried, at the time I was pretty angry about that.
The feelings around it were still close to the surface last time I lived there in the 90s and vicious arguments would break out in the working men's club.
I saw all this from a child's perspective so it will be different from an adult's but it made me proud of the people I knew, but especially of the mums who struggled with little money coming in, but supported their husbands no matter the sacrifice.

I tried to ask my Dad about the strikes a couple of years ago. My mum told me why he finds that time upsetting... he believes its what killed my grandmother (she died before I was born, in 1985). Her brothers, husband and son (my uncle) were Miners.

I was a young child at the time of the strikes so only learned about it afterwards from books and films. I found a book in a charity shop which had collected first-person accounts of miners and their families, which was a really interesting and often very poignant read. I also watched the recent documentary 'Mrs Thatcher versus the miners' (C4 I think?) and that was eye-opening, especially the horrific actions of the police at Orgreave.

The pits were closed with absolutely no thought as to the economic and social impact on entire communities. An utter lack of care for the impact on the entire community, especially children. Awful, deep, intergenerational harm.

I have been a union member in a public sector workplace and do support collective action. I have taken part in strike ballots but it happened that they were never passed by my union, so I never needed to strike. I sought union advice on two occasions (both related to pregnancy, maternity and flexible working) and unfortunately the regional rep was utterly hopeless, which effectively ended that career for me - I had been in a senior role.

I still believe that unions have an important role in protecting employees however I do not and have never supported the use of the word 'scab'. It is a horrible, abusive term and should be utterly unacceptable, alongside other words that are no longer used. Nor should that word ever be used in relation to the spouses or families of employees.

There was a horrible piece of footage in the C4 documentary showing a woman pushing a pushchair around the streets near her home in a mining area and people (almost entirely women) calling that word out to her and her toddler-aged child. Appalling, shameful, bullying behaviour. How can women treat other women that way? That word should be consigned to a history book and never let out. I am astonished that people still use that word during industrial disputes today.

If an individual does not want to take part in a strike or changes their mind about a strike, then that is up to them and should be accepted by others without hate or rancour. That is the nature of individual freedom. Clearly the reason for the strike action is not persuading that individual or they think the strike action is no longer effective. Direct any energy towards the employer, not fellow employees.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences. As an adult who lived through the strike it was emphatically not about personal choice. My husband went on strike even though his pit was scheduled to shut in 1990 because there were no seams of coal left. No dispute about that.

He went on strike as did his fellow miners in defence of the viable pits all over the country, and their livelihoods and communities, which still bear the scars of the mass closures to this day.

He and his fellows lost a whole years wages. On the basis of a rejection of personal choice.

The miners were the vanguard of the working class, the one closed shop union that had a type of comrade and social loyalty, that Thatcher needed to defeat in order to break the power of unionism. Followed through by the print union and the maritime and sea fairing union.

And boy did she achieve it.

Shit unions who never have membership meetings, who are wall to wall paid officials who don’t even have any qualifications in employment rights. Thats the benefit you reap because of scabs.

So here we are now in an era of zero hour contracts, and amazon and uber, where the tax payer subsidises poor wages by virtue of universal credit. Workers going to food banks, freezing in their houses.

The cult of the individual, ergo the rise of Transgenderism land, and all sorts of twiddly life style nonsense that goes on now, young women prostituting themselves on line etc etc.

There is no point in being in a union if you don't recognise the decision of the collective majority and cross a picket line. If you cross a picket line then you are a SCAB.

SCAB has its origin in the 1500s look it up this quite funny.

so in a nutshell scab is an important insult and one i stand by.

Thanks @AnonyLonnymouse for opening me up, and i mean that honestly.

Not much I can add to that @Karensalright . Maybe people would prefer Blackleg? Children should be left out of the equation though.

Yes this is where the cult of the individual has got us. I , me me , mine as George Harrison put it.

@Abhannmor Yes blackleg? To old fashioned i think for the time it was, I get what you said about shouting scab at a young mother, but it was so charged at the time.

Especially in the closed communities where peoples resolve started breaking down. Brassed off was a film that documented the slow return of broken families. I was in the midlands and broke my arse trying to get money and supplies to the pits where there were no other industries, no wives wages to survive on, to no avail as it turned out.

A bit off topic, but sort of related.

Apparently Starmer has written an article praising Maggie Thatcher.

I have never been a Labour Party member but remember feeling embarrassed for Labour when they voted in the value free, please like me, Tony Blair.

And now Starmer saying this. I dont know which is worse. That he actually believes it, or is just saying it to get Tory votes.

Apart from used of armed force to breack the miners strike, Thatcher over saw the sale of council housing one of the main reasons we have a housing crisis now. And broke the covenant post WWII that we all deserved decent housing.

I just despair.

It is such an insult to those, whether through unions or work associations, have tried collectively to improve working conditions for those soley dependent on their weekly wage.

Or is it that now every thing is shallow.

Not meaning to derail the thread, but saying how this compares to the miners strike, and the women at Dagenham.

Sorry OP if you think this inappropriate.

Oh God, yes. I heard that today. The last nail in Starmer’s coffin as far as I’m concerned. What an insult to the Labour Party and all its voters.

@IwantToRetire

Not at all very pertinent. Labour didn’t support the strike Shilley shalied around at the time and as always. This was much to the despair of my grandparents who were part of the labour party’s founding movement.

I remember my grandad asking me about Kinnock.

Did anyone read John McTernans piece in the Guardian? Basically thinks Starmer's praise of Thatcher a bit pointless. Look at the polls - Tories are on around 25%. These are the diehards who are not swing voters. Unless they swing to Reform or whatever Farage party shows up.

The 40+% that support Labour want real change not warm words about the architect of Britain's current misery.
And McTernan was an advisor to Tony Blair...

Reading the OP and the additional posts brings so much back to me after all this time. Kinnock and the TUC's shameful betrayals. The conversations I had with wives, children, family members. The events and violence I witnessed. The waving of the payslips from police officers and others overwhelmed with their overtime payments.

I hear you @Karensalright.

As Jack London said in 1915.
Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas Iscariot sold his saviour for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British Army. The modern strikebreaker sells his birthright, his country, his wife, his children, and his fellow men for an unfulfilled promise from his employer, trust, or corporation.

Starmer praising Thatcher? FFS. Privileged weasel, who can't even speak up for Rosie Duffield.

@LarkLane thank you for telling me about you and sharing that quote and Thankyou all for reaching out

I’m not 40 but the NUM was like a presence in my family all my life. My gran died in her 90’s and one of the final things we did was to stop her “coal money”. As a widow she got the equivalent of a bag of coal a week after my grandad died. 30+ years. Can you imagine a union with that might now?

I remember as an upstart student listening to everyone saying where there family made money (terribly posh) and I said actually they all made if off of the back of my family (miners). When my granny heard she told everyone to the point it was quite embarrassing. They don’t make them like ger anymore.