As events marking the fortieth anniversary of the 1984-85 miners’ strike continue, BBC Sounds has produced a five-part podcast series on the strike presented by the actor, writer and producer Jonny Owen. Among those contributing is Professor Keith Gildart, a member of the Society’s executive committee, and himself a former miner and expert in the historiography of the strike.

Listen to Strike on BBC Sounds.

Meanwhile, the Marx Memorial Library is holding two events in May 2024 on the miners’ strike, both in person at its premises in London’s Clerkenwell Green and online.

The first event, on 9 May starting at 7pm is a panel discussion exploring the fierce state and legal repression faced by striking miners and their families, and how solidarity from their communities and the labour movement grew as a defence against this.

Speakers include:

Lord John Hendy KC on the role of the law and the state. John spent most of his years in practice at the Bar representing workers and trade unions. During the miners’ strike of 1984-5, he appeared for the NUM and its area unions in practically all of the civil litigation against the unions including the the injunctions, sequestration and receivership. It took over a year after the strike before the sequestrators and receivers were finally removed. He was Standing Counsel to the NUM (and seven other UK unions) for many years. He is now a member of the House of Lords, appointed by Jeremy Corbyn, and an honorary professor in the Faculty of Law of University College, London. He is chair of the Institute of Employment Rights, president of the International Centre for Trade Union Rights and a vice-president of the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom.   

Heather Wood of Women Against Pit Closures. Heather trained as a nurse and later entered the probation service. In 1983 she was was chair of Easington Constituency Labour Party when they formed Save Easington Area Mines, a group which she also chaired. In 1984-5 Heather set up 14 support groups in Easington District and a number beyond.

Ann Field, Chair. Ann was a national officer of Unite/GPMU, and represented print and publishing workers from 1974 until 2009. She is joint creator of Wapping exhibition and archive at MML. 

Find out more.

Part two, on Wednesday 15 May at 7pm, will hear from archivists and historians on the importance in preserving the heritage of the miners’ strike for future generations of the labour movement. Hear panellists discuss their role in maintaining stories of the strike that would otherwise be hidden and what we can learn from them, how archivists have preserved records during and since the Strike, and the ongoing work to look after labour movement archives today.

There will also be a chance to see a display of some of the amazing material from the miners’ strike held in the Marx Memorial Library collections.

Speakers include:

Liz Wood, Project Archivist at the Modern Records Centre. Liz Wood has worked as an archivist at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, since 2006. She is currently cataloguing the archives of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) as part of ‘Mining the Past’, a three-year grant-funded project.

Keith Gildart, Professor of labour and social history, ex-miner. After working as an underground coal miner for seven years he studied at the universities of Manchester and York. Keith is an expert in the historiography of the strike and was instrumental in saving the NUM archive.

Matt Dunne, Archivist at the Marx Memorial Library. Matt works with the archival collections at the Marx Memorial Library and is carrying out a two-year cataloguing project on the library’s Printworkers Collection. He will discuss how the library reacted to the strike at the time, and some of the links of solidarity from the Miners’ Strike shown in thecollections.

Find out more.

Further reading

Inside the NUM archive: 150 years of coal mining history looks at the project to conserve and make available the archives of the National Union of Mineworkers and its predecessor unions.