“You always know when you’re talking to with another miner” – said Paul, of one of his trips to India.
This quote, by a former miner at Dodworth colliery in South Yorkshire, encapsulated the theme of this panel, chaired by University of Sheffield professor on British Modern History, Adrian Bingham.
Based on the recent publication of Backbone of the Nation by Robert Gildea, this panel brought together miners in a similar way to share their stories of the strike. While the publication saw 148 people connected with the strike involved, this panel focused on three, and the three undercurrents that ran through – resistance, ruin and redemption. All three guests discussed first and foremost the resistance against the Thatcher government that had proposed closing the coal mines, then the Police that had been mobilised to stop picket lines.
Paul Winter recounted his experiences being arrested on the A1 in Nottinghamshire for being in a car that was on the way to a picket and how this would lead to him pleading guilty to obstruction, something that he still has to declare on job applications to this day. Betty Cook said: “During the strike, I became me”, referring to her leaving an abusive relationship and going back into education, alongside working with Barnsley Women against pit closures. Kate Flannery discussed how as Sheffield’s pits had long closed, Sheffield Women Against Pit Closures sought to help pits in the rest of South Yorkshire, raising money with the Sheffield TUC on Fargate to support the NUM.
The theme of ruin was less comprehensively covered than the other two, however we were shown images from a ‘pit village’ – in this case, Grimethorpe, to illustrate the effects the closing of the mines had had on it. Finally, the panel turned to the theme of redemption, and mainly focused on this through the medium of the Orgreave Truth & Justice Campaign. The group was set up to investigate the episodes of police misconduct at the Battle of Orgreave on 18 June 1984. which saw 8000 riot police deployed at the coking plant near Sheffield to break up the 6000 assembled pickets stopping coking coal leaving for Scunthorpe.
Kate is the secretary of this campaign group and said: “There is a false narrative to be shifted so future generations learn what happened and how it affects our society now.” In the closing questions section, Robert Gildea said something which summed up the entire event “History is a battlefield to get your story told” – and that his aim by producing this book was to give the miners, and the people that supported them, their voices back.
Rating: ★★★★☆
Backbone of the Nation was published in August 2023. Other Off the Shelf Festival events can be found here
