dissertation final

UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELD
SCHOOL OF MUSIC, MEDIA AND HUMANITIES
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
AHH3053 DISSERTATION
A 30TH ANNIVERSARY RE-ASSESSMENT OF A
SOUTH YORKSHIRE COALFIELD’S
COMMUNITY STRUGGLE IN THE 1984/85
MINERS’ STRIKE
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for
History BA (Hons)
Martyn Richardson
U1263027
23 April 2015
The candidate confirms that the work submitted is their own and that appropriate credit has
been given where reference has been made to the work of others.
Total word count excluding table of contents and bibliography 11,932.

Martyn Richardson U1263027 Page 1
Contents
List of Tables.........................................................................................................................................................................2
List of Figures.......................................................................................................................................................................2
List of Pictures......................................................................................................................................................................3
Abbreviations.......................................................................................................................................................................4
Introduction..........................................................................................................................................................................5
Deep Mined Militancy.....................................................................................................................................................12
Community Riotzone.......................................................................................................................................................16
Lets ‘ere for the girls........................................................................................................................................................31
A Conclusive Legacy ........................................................................................................................................................41
Bibliography........................................................................................................................................................................44

List of Tables
Table1 British Coal Corporation, Annual Reports:
Coalfield Communities’ Campaign and Energy p4.
Table2 Percentage of manpower on strike throughout the 1984/85 Strike. p18.
Table3 South and West Yorkshire Strike breaking figures. p19.
List of Figures
Figure1 Beat the Taxman propaganda p30.

List of Pictures
Picture1 ‘When they close a pit the killa community’ p15.
Picture2 TheTimes rebel p21.
Picture3 Battling police at Hatfield 21 August 1984 P23.
Picture4 The Aftermath p24.
Picture5 Street scenes at Cortonwood p25.
Picture6 Policeat Armthorpe p25.
Picture7 Mounted policeat Hatfield p26.
Picture8 Injuries at Rossington p26.
Picture9 ‘Policing’ outside the NUM offices,Barnsley p27.
Picture10 Scared womenand children at Hatfield p27.
Picture11 WAPCrally at the Civic Hall in Barnsley p30.
Picture12 Anne Scargill after her arrest p32.
Picture13 Women on the picket line p33.
Picture14 Lesley Boulton p34.
Picture15 Food parcels p35.
Picture16 Father and son p37.
Picture17 Hungry picketers p37.
Picture19 Christmas 1984 p38.

Abbreviations
NUM – National Union of Minerworkers
NCB – National Coal Board
MFGB – Miners Federation of Great Britain
ILP – Independent Labour Party
TUC – Trade Union Congress
LRC – Labour Representative Committee
YMA – YorkshireMiners Association
NUR – National Union of Railwaymen
NTW – National Transport Workers
TU – Trade Union
CPGB – Communist Party of Great Britain
WAPC – Women Against Pit Closures
BWAPC – Barnsley Women Against Pit Closures
BMBC – Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council

Introduction
The dawning weeks of spring 1984 proved to give birth to a little more than the usual annual
spring cycle. It gave birth to the beginning of the most important working-class conflict of the
twentieth century. The rumours of a Government led pit closure programme had been
announced by NUM president, Arthur Scargill, at the beginning of March. A subsequent array of
hype and confusion filled every pit yard in the country. High levels of anxiety and frustration
added to the kinetic atmosphere which resulted in the commencing of an unofficial strike at one
of the largest pits in the Yorkshire Coalfield. Also listed as one of the pits to be closed,
Cortonwood and its miners led the country in standing to fight for their jobs and their way of
life. A domino effect followed with pits throughout the coalfield and country grinding to a halt to
show their solidarity and support. After hostility from strike opponents to adhere to legal
protocol, an official ballot was held 5 March 1984 resulting in support for national strike action
to begin.
The former mining town of Barnsley is situated at the heart of the Yorkshire Coalfield,
commonly recognised by the mining industry as one of the richest coal seams in Europe. The
small village of Darton within Barnsley has been home to me and several generations of my
family. It lays to the west of the borough and borders close to the textile rich areas of West
Yorkshire with a clear southerly view across the Pennines, which are visible from over fifteen
miles away. Dotted around the landscape like newly formed volcanoes thrusting from the earth
are the slag heaps of the Barnsley Coalfield. Now covered with wild grass and silver birch trees
in an attempt to beautify over a hundred years of coal mining in the area, they remain
prominent as a disguised form of monument to the thousands of mining families who have lived
and died on the coal it once produced, monuments to their hardship and their struggle against
nature, against pit owners and against governments. Surrounding every slag heap in the
borough evolved a way of life, a vocation, a community…all of which have now disappeared and
been sunk into the depths and darkness of the pit shaft. For me, the removal of the coal industry
meant that I was not destined for a life underground but instead presented with an all new
horizon. For the most however this is not the case. Barnsley, today, is a shadow of what it once
was: with the second highest youth unemployment rate in Britain, the economic base of the
town is unrecognisably different from that of the early 1980s. Consideration, therefore, of how

and why the collapse of the coal industry – a collapse that followed immediately after the strike
– has taken away the glue that bound together the community of Barnsley is therefore apt.1
The year from March 2014 to March 2015 has marked a milestone of commemoration within
the British labour movement. Thirty years have now passed since the fifty-one week miners’
struggle for survival. Given its fatal consequences for the industry, the 1984-5 miners’ strike
overshadows the 1926 General Strike and miners’ lockout and has inherited the label of being
the most important working-class conflict of the twentieth century. In recent years, a
combination of commemoration and a steady release of official papers have maintained interest
in the miners’ bitter struggle. These papers indeed prove that the miners’ suspicions were
correct and that the Conservative government did intend on shutting down more pits than those
it had publically identified for closure on economic grounds. As Brian Towers observed at the
time, Margaret Thatcher was not interested in the power of argument, but rather she was
interested in the argument of power and persisted until she had exacted retribution on the
National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which she blamed for downfall of the Conservative
government in 1974.2 The state deception at the time has now opened up the flood gates for
revelations of police corruption and cover-ups throughout the strike and some interesting
material on the policing response at the Bradford fire and the Hillsborough Disaster. All of
which contribute to giving the Miner’s Strike 1984/85’s pivotal status in the political and social
history of contemporary Britain.
The National Coal Board’s (NCB) Plan for Coal published in 1974 under the Labour
administration of Harold Wilson, offered (it claimed) a future and security for almost every
mining community in the country. ‘Britain is well-placed to face the future. We have coal, North
Sea oil and gas, and nuclear power resources – a combination of fuels which is exceptional in
Europe. As a nation we must clearly make the most of these resources’.3 Tensions between the
NUM and government occurred at a time when coal consumption was in decline (see Table 1),
thereby making coal less attractive as an industrial proposition. This offers quite a poignant
perspective: the absolute decline in coal consumption came at exactly the same time as the roots
of industrial working-class society were destroyed, which raises the nuanced question as to
whether economics, politics, or society are key to understanding the Miners’ Strike 1984/85.
1 Lizzie Crowley, Nye Cominetti. ‘The geography of youth unemployment: a route map for change’ The
Work Foundation: University of Lancaster (April 2014) p6.
2 Brian Towers, ‘Posing larger questions: the British miners’ strike of 1984-85’ in Industrial Relations
Journal, 16 (2) (1985).
3 National Coal Board, Plan for Coal (London, 1974), p3.

Table 1 Decline of employment inBritish Coal 1981-1997
Total workforce*
(thousands)
Number of miners
(thousands)
Numberof collieries
September 1981 279.2 218.8 211
September 1982 266.3 208.0 200
September 1983 246.3 191.7 191
**
March 1985 21.3 171.4 169
March 1986 179.6 138.5 133
March 1987 141.5 107.7 110
March 1988 117.3 89.0 94
March 1989 105.0 80.1 86
March 1990 85.0 65.4 73
March 1991 73.3 57.3 65
March 1992 58.1 43.8 50
March 1993 44.2 31.7 50
March 1994 18.9 10.8 19
March 1995 c13.0 C10.0 C19
March 1996 C13.0 C10.0 19 (25)***
*Workforce until1994 is for British Coal Corporation and after that for all employment in deep mines,of which
RJB Mining owns 19.
** There are no figures for 1984,reflecting shift from September to March as the recording date for British Coal’s
statistics.
***Figure in brackets for collieries in 1997 is for all deep mined pits, including others than those of RJB Mining.
Scholarly literature published in the aftermath of the strike drew on a range of perspectives:
from individual accounts which tell personal and regional tales, and provide the necessary
coalfield-specific nuances, through to a more developed national argument focusing on leading
figures such as Arthur Scargill and Ian MacGregor. All are convinced of the significance of the
strike.4 Dominant themes that emerge are those of community and class-struggle, as well as the
shifting balance of local and national politics. This encourages a grassroots focus and indeed
most recent historiography, with the exception of Seaumas Milne’s The Enemy Within, has
tended to adopt a bottom up approach.5
4 Martin Johnes, ‘For Class and Nation: Dominant Trends in the Historiography of Twentieth-Century
Wales’, History Compass 8, no. 11 (2010), pp. 1257-1274.
5 Seamus Milne, The Enemy Within, the secret war against the miners (London, 1994).

This reflects wider trends in labour historiography since the Second World War. Unlike the
South Wales coalfield, with Hywel Francis and Dai Smith offer an extensive history of mining in
The Fed and subsequently instil a broad awareness of militancy within its demographic.
Barnsley however, with the exception of Keith Laybourn, lacked any real focus of knowledge of
labour history.6 It is not the objective to offer a comparison of coalfields. It is with the absence of
such awareness that an alternative suggestion to Barnsley’s militant response is required. One
which is more deeply imbedded within the notion of ‘community’ and ‘collective identity’, in
particular within the characteristics of mining communities both historically and with the
consideration of Karl Manheim’s classical social theory.7
E. P. Thompson’s landmark publication The Makingof the English Working-Class (1963) sparked
a renaissance in historical thought.8 Offering the basis of Marxist superstructure interpretation,
Thompson paved the way for other eminent labour historians such as Keith Laybourn and the
late Eric Hobsbawm for a focus upon class consciousness and class struggle, particularly
through the study of working-class movements and momentous labour disputes.9 Class, when
discussing the Miners’ Strike runs intravenously through every aspect of the dispute.
Threatened by the governing elite and the removal of a way of life which had existed for
hundreds of years, from the early ‘day hole’ mining of the early eighteenth century to the
twentieth century’s mass-scale industrial might of one of the largest deep coal seams in Europe,
the mining communities of Barnsley were forced to deploy the only weapon within their arsenal
– the withdrawal of their labour. The perceived class war which developed is uniquely and
comprehensively compiled together by primary documents within the Sean Matgamna
collection.10 In this instance the notion of class conflict is not being challenged. It is impossible
to re-assess such a dispute from the perspective of the working-class without recognising and
accepting the distinct attack on working-class life. Similarly, it is not the intention here to delve
comprehensively into the political linguistics from either the Left or Right. The intention here is
to tackle the nuanced and unique characteristics of the Barnsley coalfield communities. Often
considered as the buttress of the NUM, Barnsley has raised devout Union loyalists such as ‘King
Arthur’ Scargill and, in earlier times, Herbert Smith. It has also generated a great number of
militant strike supporting communities throughout the history of the Trade Union Movement
and 1984/85 was no exception. Even by neighbouring regions standards, Barnsley picketers
6 Hywel Francis, David Smith, The Fed: a history of the South Wales Miners in the twentieth century
(London, 1980).
7 Jan Pakulski, ‘Mass movements and generations’ in Louis Maheu. Social Movements and Social Classes –
The Future of Collective Action (London, 1995), pp68-71.
8 E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London, 1963).
9 Keith Laybourn, The General Strike of 1926 (Manchester, 1993). Eric Hobsbawm. ‘The Forward March of
Labour Halted?’ Marxism Today September, 1978.
10 Sean Matgamna. Class against Class (London, 2014).

have time and time again been recognised as more militant than those of the bordering West
Riding for example.11*
The focus of what follows is why Barnsley, and to a large extent the remainder of the South
Yorkshire coalfield, became so militant during the 1984/85 strike, as well as to consider its
historical roots and survival in the decades since the strike. Some of this militancy was
undoubtedly economic: the closure of pits in Barnsley transformed the town’s working class
from one of the richest in the country into one of the poorest. For generations ‘outsiders’ have
reflected on the unique attributes of mining communities and their occupants. Richard Ayton in
the nineteenth century described mining people as looking like ‘a race fallen from the common
rank of men and doomed, or in a kind of purgatory, to wear away their lives in these dismal
shades’.12 H. V. Morton’s 1927 Travelogue In Search for England observed them to ‘sit on their
haunches against the walls, their hands between their knees…the only Englishmen who squat
like Arabs’.13 Bernard Newman in his British Journey remarks that ‘Miners are a tribe apart from
the rest of the population’.14 More famously, George Orwell in his Road to Wigan Pier comments
they are ‘strange and slightly sinister’ spectacles emerging from the pit.15 J. B. Priestley (a native
of Bradford) more accurately reflects in his English Journey that mining communities were a
necessary and undervalued underside to a green and prosperous England. Going further and
recognising the ‘strange isolation’ of the miners who were ‘living in the beastliest towns and
villages in the country’.16 These reflections offer a variety of viewpoints of mining communities
throughout the last hundred and fifty years or so. Often possessing a strange and
misunderstood level of scepticism, the ‘outsider’s’ view of mining communities has left a
restricted element when wanting to attempt a complete understanding of the language of
community in times of adversity such as in the Miners’ Strike.
Given the complexities of the term, historians’ definition of ‘community’ has often led to the
stereotyping of mining areas. Defined from the fourteenth century as a term best to describe a
sense of common identity and characteristics, mining permeated the genetics of the Barnsley
demographic.17 To prevent this stereotyping and a hazy golden glaze of nostalgia from forming
as Joanna Bourke describes, a mixture of academic applications will be used to effectively
understand the strong sense of community which was present within Barnsley during the
11 Through countless conversations with miners from outside Barnsley, this seems to be the consensus
viewpoint.
12 H.V. Morton’ In Search of England’ in David Gilbert, ‘Imagined Communities and Mining Communities’
Labour History Review, Vol.60, No.2, Autumn, 1995), p47.
13 Ibid.
14 Bernard Newman, British Journey (London, 1946), p48.
15 George Orwell, Road to Wigan Pier (London, 1986), p47.
16 Ibid.
17 Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (London, 1988), pp75-76.

Strike. A mixture of primary oral interviews, primary television footage of miners and their
communities, along with the use of primary newspaper articles from the Barnsley Chronicle –
which highlights a range of readers issues during the Strike - will be analysed to gather an inside
knowledge of what a community struggle was really all about.18 Previous academics’ failure to
do this has often frustrated the very people who experienced the events being focused upon. It
is from the poetic words of former Barnsley miner, Brian Maidment that the true value of this
re-assessment becomes clear, ‘None but those who have lived it, or lived with it, are able to
describe that which they have seen’.19 Paul Thompson recognises the richness and value of oral
testimony and states that ‘all history depends ultimately upon its social purpose. This is why in
the past it has been handed down by oral tradition’.20 This is certainly true of the communities
of Barnsley and their mining heritage.
The use of oral sources has often been recognised as problematic and fraught with danger. For
this reason many scholars have rejected the use of oral testimony and returned to using
established forms of primary sources such as newspaper articles and official Government
papers for greater interpretation and factual correctness. Oral Testimony is one of the oldest
sources which pre-dates the written word and gained momentum as a historical source during
the 1940s with the invention of the portable recording device. The development and versatility
of twenty-first century digital technology and a diminishing of almost Luddite attitudes towards
technology by the historian means that oral history is becoming an increasingly popular
methodology. By the very nature of the complexities of its definition, it is clear it is multi-
faceted. The singular, an oral history refers to a spoken memoir while oral history describes a
historical process and methodology. The shift of emphasis to a more ‘history from below’ angle
and the rise of interest in social and labour history has led to the desire to almost attempt to
penetrate everyday life of times past through the more personal process of speech.21
The purpose of this re-assessment is not to question the events, purposes or causes of the
Miners’ Strike, but to consider the meaning behind it and what it represented to the working-
class families of Barnsley. A firm agreement with Alessandro Portelli has been formed that
despite oral history telling us less about events and more about meaning, this does not mean
accounts have no factual validity. Often interviews expose unknown events or aspects of well-
known events. They often illuminate unexplored aspects of everyday life of the non-hegemonic
18 Joanna Bourke, Working-Class Cultures in Britain 1890-1960, (London, 1994).
19 Katy Shaw, Mining the Meaning, Cultural Representations of the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike (Newcastle Upon
Tyne, 2012), p.11).
20 Paul Thompson, The voice of the Past, Oral History (New York, 1988), p.1.
21 Corinna M. Peniston-Bird, ‘Oral History: the sound of memory’ in Sarah Barber. Corinna M. Peniston-
Bird, History Beyond the Text, A Students Guide to approaching alternative sources (New York, 2009),
p.105.

classes. From this view point, according to Portelli, the only problem posed by oral sources is
that of verification.22
To ensure a solid sense of verification is possible, a range of recordings taken while the strike
was still ongoing and afterwards will be used. This was a conscious decision to give the re-
assessment validity and to prevent a nostalgic viewpoint of the strike overshadowing the
reality. To tackle, as Portelli suggests, the problem of verification, the decision has been made to
support the oral history with a range of primary television footage and interviews undertaken
within the communities being focussed upon. To utilise this footage as evidence, the application
of Jeffrey Richard’s three stages of investigation will be applied. First, the content of the
programme will be analysed to ascertain how its themes and ideas are conveyed by the script (if
scripted), the acting, the direction, the photography and the music. More importantly in the case
of the genre of programme, it will be the editing which shall be critiqued intensively. It is a well-
known fact now that the initial news programme by the BBC regarding the Battle of Orgreave
was edited incorrectly and screened in the wrong order to portray the miners in a dim light.
Secondly, awareness of when, how and why the programme was made in relation to the
political, social and industrial context in which it was produced. The third stage which is to
discover how the programme was received by the audience is to prove in this instance an
unnecessary task. The issue of censorship will be approached by using multiple production
company’s footage to generate a solid consensus opinion of what the rank-and-file miners were
fighting for. Universally used to maintain the moral, political, social and economic status quo,
censorship along with Karl Marx’s hegemonic argument will be rejected. Marx suggesting that
the ruling class decide what is to be the dominant ideology and subsequently impose it is being
rejected as the country’s hegemony was already under threat. Any method of censorship it
would appear was in place to prevent even more unrest.23
The following reassessment thirty years on from the Strike will focus primarily, with the
exception of women’s involvement, on what is felt the Strike took away from Barnsley. The
‘communities’ that are now situated in former pit yards and even on pit shafts in some
instances, are not the strong communities that existed during the reign of king coal. Built upon
alternative notions such as family, ethnicity or residence to name a few, it is the belief here that
the withdrawal of a community built on industry has created a weakening of society. In Woolley
for example the old pit road serves as a symbolic divide. On the left are the hundreds of new flat
pack homes whose occupants no one knows. On the right are the old pit house rows, still with
22 Alessandro Portelli, ‘What makes Oral History Different’ in Robert Perk. Alistair Thomson, The Oral
History Reader (New York, 1998), p. 36.
23 Jeffrey Richards, ‘Film and television: the moving image’ in Sarah Barber. Corinna M. Peniston-Bird,
History Beyond the Text, A Students Guide to approaching alternative sources (New York, 2009), pp72-88.

many of the same occupants as thirty years ago, trying to grip on to the fading memories of a
traditional sense of community. The response to the Strike’s 30th anniversary shows the anger
of former miners and their families is still as prevalent as it was during the Strike. It is the task
of the academic, some of whom former miners and some members of former mining
communities, to accurately assess the 1984/85 Strike in a way others cannot.24 It is the
suggestion here that the traditional characteristics of a mining community under threat
generated such a militant response. The violence that occurred on a regular basis within the
communities added fuel to the fire and has embedded a hatred for both the police and the
Conservative Party. Women’s support in the Strike was paramount to it lasting as long as it did.
The Strike liberated many women. On the one hand it took away the traditional family ethos but
on the other it gave them alternatives to domestic engineering. On a national scale, Barnsley
was recognised as being as one of the most militant areas during the Strike. It is the suggestion
here that it was a combination of the threat of their way of life along with a history of
charismatic Marxist leadership that produced said militancy. The first chapter, ‘Deep Mined
Militancy’, will tackle the long running notion of radicalism and form a basis of historical
explanation as to why Barnsley’s response was manifested so extremely in the 1984/85 Strike.
The second chapter, ‘Community Riotzone’, will focus upon Barnsley’s formerly strong notion of
‘community’ and the pressures it was put under during the Strike which ultimately resulted in
riot zones. The third chapter will assess women’s involvement in the Strike, their support, their
lives and in many cases, their liberation. Finally, thirty years on and an analysis of the economic
and social pressures still prevalent will form an argument to suggest that killing the pits really
did kill the community.
Deep Mined Militancy
Barnsley’s militant response to the Miners’ Strike 1984/85 was a direct consequence of the
successful withdrawal of a way of life which had embodied the town for generations. Not only
this but the violence seen within the communities continued to breed bitterness and
determination; ultimately adding to the levels of militancy. Similarly to the industry being there
for hundreds of years, so too had the notion of radicalism. It is with this suggestion that it is felt
necessary to assess Barnsley’s radical heritage in order to firmly answer why Barnsley was so
militant within the 1984/85 Miners’ Strike.
24 Dave Waddington, Developing coalfields communities: breathing new life into Warsop Vale (Bristol,
2003).

Like many northern towns during the nineteenth century, Barnsley was at the forefront of
radicalising workforces. The town played a prominent role in the Chartist movement and in
1889, fifty years after the uprisings and Fergus O’Connor’s visit to the town; the Barnsley
Chronicle re-printed the ‘Barnsley Manifesto’ to reignite awareness of their cause.25 The
egalitarian Robert Owen was also a high status visitor to the area. It is of course not the
suggestion here that the militancy in the Miners’ Strike 1984/85 had a direct link with that of
nineteenth century radicalism; they both had entirely different linguistics. It is more to highlight
the evolution of militancy in a more comprehensive manner.
The origins of this particular notion of militancy is felt lays with the establishment of the Miner
Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) and the rise of organised Labour within the Trade Union
Movement and the wider Labour Movement. Miners had become from an early stage the largest
and most powerful section of workers within the Trade Union Movement. The Great Strike and
Lock-out of 1893 formed the origins of organised industrial action nationally. The strong state
response to strike action within Barnsley beholds resemblance to that of 1984/85.
The magistrates had several sittings during the week, and showed themselves ever
ready to do what lay in them to maintain order. They decided to introduce military into
the district, and on Wednesday evening, Sept 6th, a detachment of between 50-60 men
of the 6th Dragoon Guards, under Major Sproat and Lieut. Johnson, came into the town
from York. They were stationed at the police yard ready at instant call. On the same day
soldiers were stationed at the Thorncliffe and othe collieries in the Sheffield Division.
During Thursday night, Sept. 7th, a detachment of the Dublin Fusiliers arrived at the
Wombwell Main Collieries – 50 men. On the same evening a detachment of about 100
men of the 1st Battalion Royal Scotts arrived in Barnsley by special train from York.
Captain Hallet was in command. The men were divided into squads of 25 each – one
squad was detained in the town, and others were sent to Darfield Main, Woolley, and
Pilley Collieries.26
Barnsley, at this point and up until the First World War was predominantly a Liberal
constituency. The emergence of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in the latter decade of the
nineteenth century was met with hostility by the miners. The 1897 By-election proved to be a
challenging period for the Barnsley ILP candidate, Pete Curran. He was involved in a heated
‘pamphlet of views’ exchange with the local liberal candidate.27 Upon his election campaign tour
‘the miners proved hostile to Pete Curran. Curran had some local support with him as his
25 Barnsley Chronicle 29 June 1889.
26 Miners federation of Great Britain, History of The Great Strike and Lock-Out (Barnsley, 1893), pp26-27.
27 Speech by Pete Curran, 24th Sep 1897, The Labour Press Limited (Manchester, 1897) (B324.010702)

national union of Gas workers and General Labourers represented 1,300 pit top workers in the
Barnsley area. But he got a rowdy response when he arrived with Keir Hardie to speak at
Wombwell. Some reports say that the pair were stoned out of the town by miners’.28 The
election was a flop for Curran and the ILP received just 1,091 votes. James Blythe of the
Conservatives received 3,454 and Joseph Walton of the Liberals received 6,744.29 Despite the
loss however, the election provided the ILP with a base in the town which saw progression on to
a national basis and eventually saw the formation of the Labour Party.
The support for Liberalism in the town may not seem radical in the sense that we recognise
today but at the end of the nineteenth century, Liberalism was the mainstream progressive
option. The hostility towards the ILP was manifested by a sense of loyalty which was often
associated with mining communities of Barnsley. After the Trade Union Congress (TUC) annual
conference in 1899, the call was made for Labour representation in Parliament. By 1900 the
Labour Representation Committee (LRC) was formed of which the ILP was one of the
organisations which became affiliated to the new body. A combination of old Liberals in the area
leaving politics and the growth of support in Parliament for Labour saw attitudes of miners
changing and in 1906 the Yorkshire Miners Association (YMA) voted by 17,389 to 12,730 to the
LRC. Immediately after the First World War the LRC officially became the Labour Party and in
the first elections won four seats on Barnsley Council; John Broley, Jack Guest, Charles Hesketh
and John Kellett.30 Unbeknown at the time but Curran and more importantly for the miners,
MFGB delegate and TU activist Herbert Smith represented the birth of successful charismatic
Marxist leadership in Barnsley.31
Smith was, as The Times emphasised in his obituary, ‘unyielding’ and ‘uncompromising’, which
is argued to have lessened his effectiveness as a Trade Unionist.32 This may have been the
consensus view from his associates but the miners he represented thought otherwise. The
miners in essence had been dished a bad hand during the General Strike. The Triple Alliance
with the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) and the National Transport Workers (NTW) had
failed. The fragmentation of the Labour Movement meant that loyal Trade Unionists like Smith
were left betrayed by militant Left wingers who were engulfed within the red mist of Russia.
With all the political and TU turmoil the miners of Barnsley, and throughout Yorkshire for that
matter, needed a figure that was loyal, trustworthy, unyielding and uncompromising. Those
28 Judith Watts, Donald Nannestad, The First 50 Years Half a Century of Labour Rule in Barnsley (Barnsley,
unknown), p3.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid pp4-5.
31 Marc Brodie, ‘Smith, Herbert (1862–1938)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University
Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36146, accessed 15 April 2015]
32 The Times 17 June 1938

characteristics were recognised in Smith and repaid by thousands of miners at his funeral by
lining the route, a distance of twenty miles, from his office in Barnsley to his final resting place
in Castleford.33
The shift in political allegiance in Barnsley was not smooth and came under surprising attack by
local press. To counter this Barnsley News was set up in 1922 and interestingly was
discontinued in 1926 after the General Strike. Due to the level of support from the miners,
support for the General Strike in Barnsley was high. The scenes which occurred during the 1893
Lock-Out or 1984/85 Strike did not develop and the town had minimal altercations. Barnsley
‘dint av a drop er rain, it wo beautiful’34 and interestingly the focus was again on community
fundraising. In this instance sport proved to be integral and ladies football teams raised on
average two shillings per match.35 The experience of the General Strike was that of hardship and
it is the suggestion here that it was Labour’s progressive social policies that extended their
support throughout the borough and imbedded a sense of loyalty within the communities.
1927 saw Labour take control of Barnsley Council for the first time. Three years later however
they lost it and the continued hostility from the media was evident, ‘Barnsley to its unspeakable
relief has been delivered from the Socialist thraldom that of late has weighed like an incubus on
the borough’.36 The economic turbulence of the early 1930s was reflected in the local media’s
response to the 1933 election and it campaigned for more independent candidates to come
forward to oppose Labour.37 Poverty and living conditions in Barnsley at this time were among
the worst in the country. Just over 6,400 people were crammed into an area of 58 acres. In the
worst case a family of fifteen lived in a three roomed house. One in ten babies were dying before
the age of one year old which was 28% above the national average.38 The rise in living standards
and social provisions implemented by Labour along with a strong allegiance with the NUM in
the area meant that Labour began to flourish. Labour from the period 1945 – 1972 was a
majority party in Barnsley. The main opposition to Labour was the Citizens Party which was
similar to the Ratepayers Party. It was not until 1962, possibly due to the rise of mobility seeing
families from other areas migrating into the area, until the Conservatives first contested the
elections. During this period the Liberals first put up a candidate in 1953 and were successfully
33 Marc Brodie, ‘Smith, Herbert (1862–1938)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University
Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36146, accessed 15 April 2015]
34 Unknown Author, The Heart and Soul of it: A documentation of how the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike affected
the people in the pit village of Worsborough Dale and surrounding districts, and their survival (Todmorden,
1985), p65.
35 Ibid
36 Judith Watts, Donald Nannestad, The First 50 Years Half a Century of Labour Rule in Barnsley (Barnsley,
unknown), p8.
37 Ibid, p9.
38 Ibid.

elected in 1962.39 However, improved social provisions and better living standards embedded
Barnsley’s loyalty towards Labour even to this day. Mining after World War Two saw somewhat
of a renaissance in technology which saw a new era of education and apprenticeships.
Amongst the interns for Woolley pit was a young Arthur Scargill. Scargill was down the pit at 15
in 1953 and a member of the Young Communist League in 1955. Influenced but not forced
politically by his Communist father, Scargill acquired a number of delegate posts before
acquiring NUM Presidency in 1973 until July 2002. The length of his presidency stands
prominent as a symbol of his charismatic leadership; flaws and all. After the revelations of his
rent scandal for his second home in London during the 1990s, the thirtieth anniversary of the
Strike still sees former miners heatedly divided over their opinions of Scargill. Also causing
continuous friction, as highlighted by Laybourn, is that of the Fragmented Left with the
Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) as well as the lessened support from Neil Kinnock and
the Labour Party.40 Nevertheless, no one can take away the fact that Scargill, during the Strike
represented the miners well. Albeit with similar flaws to that of Smith some fifty five years
previously, his unyielding and uncompromising nature was exactly what the miners wanted. He
presented a figure that the miners could associate with. Starting down the pit just like the
majority of male school leavers, he presented a heritage the miners could put their support into
knowing that he would represent the interest of them rather than short changing them to
bolster his career. Similarly for the women of Barnsley and nationally, his then wife Anne came
from a humble background working in her local Co-op store. She became a figure head of one of
the largest women’s campaign groups the country has seen. It is the suggestion here that this
was the case because miner’s wives politicised or not, could connect with her as a person and
had faith in her loyalty, a loyalty that is still present thirty years on as Anne continues
campaigning and supporting the homeless of Barnsley. In essence, the strong leadership that
Barnsley has seen over the years has characterised and enforced its militancy.
Community Riotzone
Therewaaboutfour or five policethere so I sezya not gerrin in ere, the int anyone in ere. Anyway,
I got mi head like in between the kitchen door and the wall. I tried to keep it, ya know, so they
couldn’t gerrin. Anyway, I said ya not gerrin in and instead of pushing the door to get in, mi head
39 Barnsley Borough Council Elections 1945 – 1972, Experience Barnsley Archive, (Barnsley Pamphlets
B324).
40 Keith Laybourn, Marxism in Britain. Dissent, decline and re-emergence 1945-c.2000 (Oxon, 2006),
pp121-124.

was in between, they pulled it towards them. Well the door hit here [points to side of her head]
and mi head hit the wall. Mi glasses went and that’s all I remember 41 - A Housewife
The question as to whether or not the Strike was worth it is as divisive today as it was thirty
years ago. The industry and surrounding communities have now long gone. There are currently
only two pits left in Yorkshire at Hatfield and Kellingley. Official announcements have stated
that Kellingley is to close in the near future. It is fair to say that it is only a matter of time until
the final curtain falls on the British mining industry. With no sign of anywhere near the support
experienced thirty years ago, the question bares as to whether the removal of the industry has
quite literally killed the community and its collective identity. Listening to individuals from
within the former mining communities of Barnsley and with being able to offer an ‘insiders’
perspective, it is possible to get to grips with Barnsley’s rank-and-file militancy in response to
the death of their industry and communities. To elaborate on H.V. Morton, it is felt more
beneficial to be part of those miners who ‘sit on their haunches against the walls, their hands
between their knees…the only Englishmen who squat like Arabs’, to fully appreciate the ‘real’
strikes complex nature.42
A widespread viewpoint within Barnsley at the time was that ‘The miners had no choice but to
fight. If workers never fought or went on strike they would never be taken seriously as a class. If
41 Channel 4 TV programme, Ken Loach, ‘Which Side Are You On?’ (1985),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzFXE961Hwc 25/1/15.
42 H.V. Morton In Search of England’ in David Gilbert, ‘Imagined Communities and Mining Communities’ in
Labour History Review, Vol.60, No.2, Autumn, 1995), p47.
Picture 1 Communitysupport poster

workers didn’t fight they would have no rights and would be at the mercy of their exploiters.
After the miners’ strike there can be no doubt that the British working-class is a force to be
reckoned with. For 12 months the miners and their communities fought with courage and
determination to defend their jobs, their living standards and their dignity. Their fierce struggle
against overwhelming odds has shown millions of workers that it is possible to fight back
against the system. The question is whether or not it was worth it?’43
The clashes between police and picketers were making national headline news44. They were not
breaking out in foreign lands. They were breaking out in the places the miners called home.
News reports were comparing scenes within Barnsley and its surrounding villages to those of
the fierce conflict in Northern Ireland at the time.45 The scale of the violence warrants a little
understanding to what the mining communities were fighting for before the violent scenes are
looked upon in greater detail.
In the years leading up to the 1984/85 strike, more than 1 in 5 Barnsley residents were
employed by the National Coal Board (NCB), and between 2-2.5 thousand non-NCB jobs were
linked to the industry.46 Life in Barnsley’s pocketed communities appears to have distinct
gender divisions. For a young lad leaving school from the Darton area of Barnsley, an element of
‘following in your father’s footsteps’ shows a clear sign of direction, ‘mi mother dint want me to
go into mining but mi dad did, the wa no other options’.47 So at sixteen in 1982, one young lad
like many Barnsley sons had done before, followed in his father’s footsteps for a life down the
pit, an option all too real for myself if Woolley pit was still in production. ‘There wa alus jobs for
not so clever lads’ explained Alan.48 A woman’s life was lived very much in the shadows of
chauvinistic men. “Men would work together, drink together and socialise together. The women
were expected to socialise together too. As a woman you weren’t judged as a person, you were
judged as someone’s mother or someone’s wife”.49 Life, described by one miner’s wife was not
easy. A traditional expectation of his dinner on the table upon returning from work was still the
43 Mike Freeman. The Miners’ fight for jobs, Our day will come (London, 1985), p6.
44 BBC news report (1984) www.youtube.com ‘Miners and Police Fight During Strike 1984 BBC News
Clip’, uploaded 11/4/08,[accessed 21/1/15] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpOwOquPc2M
45 BBC news report (1984) www.youtube.com ‘UK News 1984 _ Miners Strike, I.R.A.’, uploaded 27/12/12
[accessed 21/1/15] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2imzWOFYE0
46 Barnsley Chronicle. 6 July 1984.
47 Oral history interview with Alan Blackburn (SR440/P/CD), recorded 2012, National Coal Mining
Museum for England.
48 ibid
49 Oral history interview with Betty Cook (SYW1103), date unknown, South Yorkshire Women in
Industry, Experience Barnsley Archive.

norm. With many women not leaving the domestic sphere or only leaving the house on a
weekend with their husband being the, ‘done thing’, life was ‘close knitted’ to say the least.50
Much of the archetypal characteristics present within Barnsley prior to the strike is echoed in
Beatrix Campbell’s observations of mining communities in the 1950s. Coal is our Life reinforces
that Barnsley was not unique in enduring the sexist character of coalfield gender relations but
indeed helps to extend the understanding of how such a community works.51 A weighted
agreement with David Gilbert has emerged in the notion of shared identity being the precursor
to forming the traditional mining community.52 In this instance it is being suggested that both
‘industry’ and then ‘class’ form the dominant notions of identity and play a greater role in
understanding the community response in Barnsley during the strike. Nevertheless, as an
‘insider’ myself, it is felt that that the community response in Barnsley boils down to a much
more innate instinct. A force which drives out a basic instinct within the rows of pit houses
which have stood for a hundred plus years. The instinct of fighting for survival and the threat
upon an entire way of life which has been experienced for generations outweighs any
‘outsider’s’ application for reason. As ex-NUM delegate Dave Douglas still expresses to the
masses, ‘the strike was not just about jobs!’53 Miners relied upon each other for survival down
the pits. This created a bond so tight that it filtered down through each family. Each miner
risked their life when they sank down the pit shaft, each miner’s wife endured a shift worth of
worry as to whether their husband, or their neighbours husband would return, and each
miner’s child lived in the familiarity and security of other mining families.54 Taking away a pit
really did kill a community. This could not be better iterated than by the words of a mother
fighting for the future of her children.
‘Mummy, I need new clothes,
How I’m going to get them heaven knows.
26 weeks without any pay,
and now we’re living day to day.
The freezer ‘alas is now quite empty,
And in my purse only £1.20.
Out of the window has gone my pride,
Maternal instinct says provide.
Faced with trousers with holes in the leg,
I guess I’ve to learn how to beg.
Mummy, are you going to give in?
50 Oral history interview with Betty Cook (SYW1103), date unknown, South Yorkshire Women in
Industry, Experience Barnsley Archive.
51 Beatrice Campbell. Coal is Our Life (London, 1956).
52 David Gilbert, ‘Imagined Communities and Mining Communities’ in Labour History Review, Vol.60, No.2,
Autumn, 1995).
53 Oral presentation with David Douglas, 2014, ‘A Year of Class War,’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiasO_uMWeM 25/1/15.
54 Ibid.

No my darling, not ‘til we win.
I know your faith lies in my hand,
And perhaps one day you’ll understand.
Why the hardships we had to endure,
To make your future more secure.
There’s no dignity in a dole queue,
That’s not the life I want for you.55
From March 1984 the strike immediately began to thrust divisions within communities
throughout Barnsley. Friends, neighbours and even families were divided on whether to
support the strike and even whether the strike was legal or not due to it being non-balloted at
first. For many the strike represented an economic argument and of course this was a major
factor for most. More importantly it is felt however, that a greater concern developed in the
moral economy of the community. Many of the striking miners had parents who were active in
the 1972 and 1974 strikes. For some of those the reinforcing legacy of the General Strike 1926
was all too apparent. Decisions which were made in the heat of 1926 often had lasting effects
within the community. ‘The wo three or four men in’t Dale [Worsborough Dale] that went back
to work during strike [General Strike 1926]. But yer know the wo outcasts after strike, up till
day the did’.56 As suggested by Keith Laybourn in reviewing Hester Barron’s The 1926 Miners’
Lockout, there was a sign that ‘A collective consciousness shared an historical narrative of coal
miners was continuously reinforced by memory, myth and experience’ was certainly being
echoed in the coalfield communities of Barnsley.57 For many young miners a certain sense of
moral family obligation was a key motivation for going on strike. My own uncle has recalled to
me on several occasions the time when my grandfather told him “Tha goin on strike!” My
grandfather had been a prominent activist in the previous 1972/74 strikes against the Heath
Government and on one occasion was called upon by Arthur Scargill to lead a convoy of coaches
to picket a power station in East Anglia.
During the 1984/85 Strike, Yorkshire, in particularly Barnsley and its surrounding South
Yorkshire towns, not only received some of the lowest numbers of strike breakers in the
country but has also been recognised as having some of the most militant miners.58 To begin to
support this notion the table below compares the number of supporters of the strike by national
area and follows the percentage of workers that stayed out on strike for the duration.
55 Channel 4 TV programme, Ken Loach, ‘Which Side Are You On?’ (1985).
56 Unknown Author, The Heart and Soul of it: A documentation of how the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike affected
1985), p65
57 Keith Laybourn review of Hestor Barron. The 1926 Lockout, Meanings of community in the Durham
Coalfield (Oxford, 2010).
58 David John Douglas. Pit Sense versus the State: A history of militant miners in the Doncaster area
(London, 1993), p78.

Area Manpower % on strike 19
November
1984
% on strike 14
February 1985
% on strike 1
March 1985
Coke works 4,500 95.6 73 65
Kent 3,000 95.9 95 93
Lancashire 6,500 61.5 49 38
Leicestershire 1,900 10.5 10 10
Midlands 19,000 32.3 15 23
NorthDerbyshire 10,500 66.7 44 40
North East 23,000 95.5 70 60
North Wales 1,000 35 10 10
Nottinghamshire 30,000 20 14 22
Scotland 13,100 93.9 75 69
SouthDerbyshire 3,000 11 11 11
South Wales 21,500 99.6 98 93
Workshops 9,000 55.6 - 50
Yorkshire 56,000 97.3 90 83
National 196,000 73.3 64 60
Table 2 Percentage of manpower on strikethroughout the conflict.
The Yorkshire area boasted numbers in excess of both South Wales and Kent combined - areas
which have also been described as militant. A comparison of the three areas shows Yorkshire
dropping in support more dramatically than Kent and South Wales. A plausible reason for this
would be to suggest that the Strike was affecting more families. Regardless however Yorkshire
was still the third strongest area nationally for strike support by 1 March 1985. What does need
to be taken into consideration is the fact that within table 1, Yorkshire has not been split into
separately defined regions. If it was true that those miners from South Yorkshire and Barnsley
were more militant than those of West Yorkshire for example, an alternative set of figures
would need to be considered to support such an argument.
Table 2 below illustrates by comparison the level of strike breaking between South and West
Yorkshire by individual pits. The pits highlighted were all in Barnsley and its surrounding area,
while the non-highlighted are spread within the borders of West Yorkshire. A notable
comparison due to their relatively close proximities would be that of Woolley and
Caphouse/Denby Grange Collieries. Although directly connected underground it would seem
that the spread of solidarity from the South did not cross through borders on the surface.
Caphouse Colliery encountered a disproportionately high level of ‘scabbing’. To compare by
actual pit size – Woolley being considerably larger than Caphouse/Denby – either North Gawber
or Dodworth would have been on a similar scale to Caphouse/Denby Grange.

Table 3 Non-supporting strikefigures
Colliery 1983
Workforce
Scabs % Scabbing
Caphouse/Denby 460 289 63
Bullcliffe Wood 310 73 24
EmleyMoor 250 47 19
Park Hill 360 125 35
KinsleyDrift 440 29 7
Ferrymore 560 37 7
SouthKirby 1470 48 3
RoystonDrift 570 21 4
Woolley 1750 229 13
NorthGawber 770 54 7
Dodworth 1260 98 8
Houghton 1530 83 5
Grimethorpe 1740 18 1
Darfield 710 9 1
Barrow 1260 82 7
Dearne Valley 390 4 1
ShaftonWashery 400 27 7
Birdwell Washery 200 85 4
Totals 14430 1358 9
Although Woolley possessed the greatest percentage of strike breakers in South Yorkshire, the
number is relative to the high number of employees. Overall, both West and South Yorkshire
contributed to just nine percent of the national strike breaking levels. A clear argument is
presented from table 1 and 2. Firstly, Yorkshire on a national scale was in terms of quantity, the
most militant area of the country. Secondly, South Yorkshire and the Barnsley area stand out as
being a model for expected militancy throughout the rest of Yorkshire. If they did not have a
solid history of their struggle similar to that of the South Welsh miners in Dai Smith’s The Fed,
the question continues as to why the militancy became so intense.59
For those who chose not go on strike an entirely different bleak future lay ahead of them. They
faced a future of victimisation, ostracisation, and the stigma of being what was to become
known as a ‘scab’. An effect of the stress and family tensions for one man was too much and was
“nattered to death”.60 The difficulties and responses to strike breakers are delicately touched
upon from both sides in Channels 4’s twenty fifth anniversary documentary which focused upon
59 Hywel Francis, David Smith, The Fed, a history of the South Wales Miners in the twentieth century
(London, 1980).
60 Oral history Interview with Jack Wallis (SR200/P/CD) 15/11/1999, National Coal Mining Museum for
England.

the activities within the Hatfield mining community in Doncaster.61 The divisions thrust
between members of every mining community are all too apparent thirty years later. So much
so that silence still falls between former friends. Nevertheless it is not the purpose here to
assess why people returned to work. However, the importance of maintaining rank was all too
apparent in the Barnsley Chronicle advertisement in February 1985:
‘NUM Grimethorpe Branch, This branch makes it clear that John Davies, Underground
Fitter of 1 School Street, Cudworth has not returned to work. W. Fearn. Secretary’.62
The severity of the consequences of returning to work is all too visible in an article from The
Times in October 1984.63
Picture 2 The Times article October 1984.
Tensions within communities progressively worsened and the perceived war with the police
only heightened frustrations. Penny Green’s research into policing during the strike has exposed
the extent of their co-ordinated campaign against the miners.64 The presence of police in mining
villages was for political purposes as well as for a massive campaign of intimidation on village
life and its residents.65 Arrests of picketing miners on both false and changeable charges
breached civil rights and would allow police to issue strict bail conditions to prevent a return to
picketing. The police were tackling the issue by means of collective rather than individual
61 Channel 4 Documentary, ‘When Britain went to war’ http://www.channel4.com/programmes/when-
britain-went-to-war 24/1/2004, [accessed 1/2/2015]
62 Barnsley Chronicle 15 February 1985, p3.
63 The Times 10 October 1984.
64 Penny Green. Still the Enemy Without (Buckingham, 1990).
65 Jim Coulter, Susan Miller, Martin J Walker, A State of Siege: Politics and Policing of the Coalfields: The
Miners’ Strike 1984 (London, 1984).

guilt.66 The Government’s underwriting of local police budgets ensured that a higher proportion
of police were present at picket lines and mining villages than if it had been entirely run by local
constabularies. For instance constabularies in Sheffield and Rotherham refused to pay for
mounted divisions in their areas. The funding came from central Government.67 Ironically heavy
cuts were being made by Government on miners’ child benefits. This does seem to vary on an
individual basis but one family state they received only nineteen pence per fortnight per child.68
It is clear the Miners’ Strike was being policed by not only the police on the front lines but the
High Court, the NCB and the Welfare System.
Scenes similar to the one in picture 3 at Hatfield, Doncaster became common sight in many
mining villages in Barnsley too. The anticipation of daily violence in clashes between police and
picketers became part of the rank-and-file rhetoric. ‘It is the younger ones that end up in the
front line, you tend to look after the older ones, we don’t want them getting hurt do we? So
when they dish it out, we get it first’.69 ‘She wa art to smash are communities’.70 Communities
under threat from a force which was in theory there to protect society entirely reinforces the
hatred that many in mining communities began to develop for the police and state. News
footage from the strike compares the streets of Barnsley and surrounding areas to those in
Northern Ireland. With armoured vehicles and mounted divisions racing through picket lines,
miners would be left with the choice to run or battle with bricks and stones.71
66 Penny Green. Still the Enemy Without (Buckingham, 1990).
67 Oral presentation with David Douglas, 2014, ‘A Year of Class War’.
68 Oral history interview with Stevie Reeves (SR351) ‘That’s what I call mining’, National Coal Mining
Museum for England.
69 Unknown Author. The Heart and Soul of it: A documentation of how the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike affected
1985), p110.
70 Oral history interview with Anne Scargill (SR389.1/p/cd), 21/7/2010, National Coal Mining Museum
for England.
71 News report of picket violence (1984) ‘miners strike 1984’ uploaded 17/1/2014, [accessed 2/2/2015]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdnALBBQL7k

Picture 3 Battling policeand picketing miners. 21 August 1984

Picture 4 The aftermath of night time clashes between police and picketers at Cortonwood.

Picture 5 Villages like Cortonwood, Barnsley, would become locked down by the police. Police would batter
on their shields to provoke a response from the picketers.
Picture 6 Similarly here at Armthorpe, Doncaster. Police armed with extended batons would march through
people’s homes in search for picketers.

Picture 7 Police mounted divisions would charge around villages. The speed of which is evident here as a
horse loses its footing in mid gallop.
Picture 8 an injured picketer looks on to the police lines at Rossington Colliery.

Picture 9 two policeman 'deal' with a miner outside the NUM offices in Barnsley, note his comrades posing
such a threat to warrant the physical response.
Picture 10 Scared women and children leave their homes in the presence of riot police.

In an attempt to avoid the problems of the 1972 strike where police were overwhelmed by
picketers at the now infamous Battle of Saltley Gate, a policy of extensive policing was
implemented from the beginning of the Strike.72 Many South Yorkshire families have since
complained about the harsh actions of the police claiming that they were abusive and needlessly
damaged property whilst pursuing pickets.73 For this reason the effects of police antagonism
was magnified during the Strike. While the miners and their families were “having to tell your
[their] children they’ll be no presents this Christmas because your Dad’s on strike”,74 and
reports of miners driven to food theft from warehouses, the police were waving there overtime
earnings literally in the picketing miners’ faces.75
On one picket line in Cortonwood the miners had the chance to get the upper hand over the
police for a solitary moment. The winter months had laid down a generous snow fall and in a bid
to amuse themselves the picketing miners indulged in a playful moment by building a snowman.
While police looked on, slightly away from the picket line the picketers huddled round and
completed their brief return to childhood pleasures. The miners parted to reveal the snowman
to the on-looking police and with immediate response the Sergeant leaped into his Land Rover
and started up the engine. The picketers stood back already expecting the antagonistic response
by the boys in blue. Revving the Land Rover the Sergeant hurled towards the snowman in a
desire to flatten the picketers’ spirits as well as their new found friend. Unbeknown to the
Sergeant however was the fact that the snowman had been built around a concrete bollard. He
proceeded to plough at speed into the innocent looking snowman which severely damaged his
vehicle.76
The continuous outbreaks of violence within mining communities in Barnsley along with
financial pressures put unimaginable strain on families. The violent actions of national police
forces created ostracisation of local beat Bobbies. The Working Men’s Club in Monk Bretton in
Barnsley for instance met to discuss whether local police officers should be banned from the
premises.77 A continued propaganda campaign by the NCB encouraged striking miners to return
to work was scattering the town in newspapers and posters (figure 1).78
72 Martin Adeney. John Lloyd. The Miners' Strike 1984-5: Loss without limit. (London, 1988), p. 101.
73 Ibid. pp120-247.
74 Oral history interview with Jack Wallis (SR200/p/cd), 15/11/1999, National Coal Mining Museum for
England.
75 Barnsley Chronicle 6 July 1984, p42.
76 Bernard Jackson. Tony Wardle, The Battle for Orgreave (London, 1986).

Local Citizens Advice Bureaus reported that the ‘Strike [was] tearing couples apart’.79 Due to the
previous 1972/74 strikes’ success it became apparent that the younger striking miners with
new families had unwittingly been told by older miners that they would not be out on strike
long.80 The 1984/85 strike proved to be very different in ways other than just the expected
length of time it would last. There was a difference that possibly even the Government did not
expect or could prepare for. They proved to be the glue that bonded every coalfield in the
country together of which the miners “wouldn’t have lasted twelve weeks without them”.81
They were of course…THE WOMEN.
Lets ‘ere for the girls.
As one who was born into a mining family, and married a miner, I know no other way of life, so I
will defend my heritage. I take pride in being a member of a community that has brought untold
wealth and benefits to this country – BWAPC member, North Gawber Pit, Barnsley. 82
79 Barnsley Chronicle 1 February 1985, p7
80 Oral history interview with Alan Blackburn (SR440/p/cd) 2012, National Coal Mining Museum for
England.
81 Oral presentation with David Douglas, 2014, ‘A Year of Class War’.
82 Women Against Pit Closures Barnsley Women Vol.2 (Barnsley, 1985), p28.
Figure1National Coal Board flier encouraging miners to comeback to work,
1985 (Sheffield Archives:SY731/V1)

Picture 11 WAPC rally at the Civic Hall in Barnsley
For Joanna Bourke, the idea of community is viewed as almost sociologically useless and
dangerously romantic. More often than not a retrospective imagining fostered in
autobiographies and oral histories ‘where social relations are often recalled through a golden
haze’.83 It has been the desire here to directly challenge this view by presenting a history of a
community via the methods which are being criticised. In this instance it is felt in order to have
a good understanding of a community, it is beneficial to listen to their voices. Indeed this has
been done and with the exception of a rather nostalgic viewpoint of Christmas 1984, the
presented testimony has not been presented through a golden haze. In fact it is felt quite the
opposite has been suggested with the harsh reality of community life during the Miners’ Strike
of 1984/85 described in all of its vividness. As suggested by J B Priestley, miners and their
families may live ‘in the beastliest towns and villages in the country’ but they really are ‘a tribe
apart from the rest of the population’.84
Women’s involvement during the Strike was entirely unexpected.85 The previously outlined
Mining communities were characteristically male dominated societies..86 As highlighted by Betty
Cook, one of the founding members of Women Against Pit Closures (WAPC), the previous
83 Bernard Harris review of Joanna Bourke ‘Working class cultures in Britain 1890-1960’ in Ethnic &
Racial Studies. Apr95, Vol. 18 Issue 2, p410-411.
84 J B Priestley. English Journey (London, 1934), p329: Bernard Newman. British Journey (London,
1946),p213.
85 Seminar with Anne Scargill and Bettye Cook. Women of the World Festival 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EysQ5afTbfg [accessed 3/3/2015].
86 Jim Phillips. Collieries, communities and the miners’ strike in Scotland, 1984-85 (Manchester, 2012),
pp110-143.

1972/74 strikes for her, were filled with worry and tears. Stuck at home not knowing whether
or not she and her family would eat that day or whether her husband would be home from the
picket lines was a prospect she and many women like her refused to go back to.87 ‘During ‘72
and ‘74 [strikes] the miners had strikes but it was about money, it wasn’t about fighting for the
survival of communities. When ‘84 came along I decided that I wasn’t going to sit and cry, I’m
going to pull my boots up and do something about this’.88 Another woman from a different
village in Barnsley remembers her initial reactions to going on strike, ‘One morning I gorrup and
sed, what are we going to do? So I went knocking on doors and got a few women together in’t
village. We ‘ad a little meeting and we decided we’d go collecting to see what we could do. We
went door to door collecting. We did this for a while and then we found out about Barnsley
Women Against Pit Closures [BWAPC]. So we rang ‘em up and one of the girls said come to a
meeting’.89 The media at this early point had been portraying women as generally not
supporting the Strike.90 The attendance at this early meeting had therefore been expected to be
relatively low. It does seem however that in responding to the threat of pit closures, women
showed their determination to prevent the devastation of their communities. Jean Miller,
BWAPC supporter describes scenes at the meeting, ‘we were sat there at half past one
wondering if anyone was going to turn up. And within three quarters of an hour people were
full; women were sat on the floor, in the lounge and in the dining room. In the passage and sat
up the stairs as well. And that was the level of interest there was and we moved on from there.’91
The inaugural delegate conference for WAPC and other women’s supporters groups was held on
22 July 1984 at Northern College in Barnsley.92 A place that I owe thanks to for starting me off
on the path to academia. Women supporters from every coalfield in the country were united in
one place for the very first time.
The diversity of women’s support spread beyond the expectations of the men. Without their
support the Strike would not have seen the lengthy endurance that it did. The Barnsley Chronicle
considered that ‘The Strike has in many ways brought out the best in women’.93 Women were
not restricted to backstage either. Many were prominent on the picket lines. One BWAP
member, Sandra Hutchinson begins to describe what being on a picket line was like. ‘I went
87 Oral history interview with Betty Cook (SYW1103), South Yorkshire Women in Industry, Experience
Barnsley Archive.
88 Anniversary video with Betty Cook, Women Against Pit Closures, Experience Barnsley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaJBNjIOrOw
89 Anniversary video with Gwen White. Women Against Pit Closures Experience Barnsley
90 Unknown Author. Women Against Pit Closures, Barnsley Women (Barnsley, 1984), p5.
91 Anniversary video with Jean Miller. Women Against Pit Closures Experience Barnsley
92 Unknown Author. Women Against Pit Closures, Barnsley women (Barnsley, 1984), p5.
93 Barnsley Chronicle 6 July 1984, part 2 p19.

along with the other pickets I’d been picketing with and it was…..erm..scary. And the horses
were the worst thing. They just charged down streets irrespective of who might have been in
the way or anything. I was trembling. I couldn’t feel my legs for a few minutes afterwards’.94
Anne Scargill reflects on her first picket line, ‘It was the first picket and quite a few of our
women, young women, never been on a picket line before. They were apprehensive but they
went and we met up with four more women who came from Nottinghamshire….we followed
them to Silver Hill and errr there wa no police there. There was only four or five police there,
not many at all so we went right up to the pit gates. Anyway we started picketing, singing and
shouting and men were coming into work and we were shouting scab scab scab’.95 Anne then
goes on to explain the events after the police had just arrested one of her BWAP comrades, ‘
excuse me, don’t think I’m being rude but what you arrested them for? And then he said,
ger her aswell….so I ended up in the picket van as well. Took the four of us to the police
station and what they did wa strip search us. They stuck us in a cell, made us take all of
our clothes off, it was horrendous. I shall never ever forget that as long as I live. And I
came out of there and I thought right, they’ve done that to me, they’re not going to
intimidate me. I think they made me worse [more determined].96
94 Anniversary video with Sandra Hutchinson, Women Against Pit Closures, Experience Barnsley.
95 Seminar with Anne Scargill and Bettye Cook. Women of the World Festival 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EysQ5afTbfg [accessed 3/3/2015].
96 Anniversary video with Anne Scargill, Women Against Pit Closures, Experience Barnsley.
Picture 12 Anne Scargill after her arrest

Unfortunately these actions were not unique. Betty Cook tells of her experience at a picket line,
‘They were just so cruel to us. They taunted us, they pushed us around, they broke my kneecap
on the picket line and they were just horrible. They used to bring horses and dogs to attack us
and they didn’t care if there were women and children there, it didn’t matter. They called us the
enemy within and they were determined they were going to defeat us’.97 A sense of why mining
communities began to build a strong disliking to ‘policing’ is understandable when considering
how widespread such episodes may have been. Nevertheless, women stayed strong and
supportive of their cause. After all, ‘sometimes it was heart aching and sometimes it was fun’.98
As the Strike continued women started to get a militant reputation, ‘we gave em a rough ride
and an inspector came to me one morning and he said oh my god how many’s ere? I said about
thirty on us, he sez I’d rather have a hundred men than thirty women. I said that’s your problem
not mine’.99
The solidarity from the miners’ wives and other women’s support groups was not restricted to
the picket lines. For women who were injured on the picket line or for those who did not like
97 Anniversary video with Betty Cook, Women Against Pit Closures, Experience Barnsley.
98 Anniversary video with Gwen White, Women Against Pit Closures, Experience Barnsley.
Picture 13 Womenjostlingwith policeona picket lineat YorkshireMain (Edlington).

the amount of confrontation, there was the equally important job of fundraising and support for
poverty-stricken families. This ranged from door to door collections through to full scale open
air concerts like the one arranged at The Black Bull at Stairfoot, Barnsley on 31 July 1984.100 A
Miners Support Cabin was also placed in Barnsley town centre which from 8 June 1984 to 4
March 1985 raised a total of £10,673.101 The huge sense of liberation the Strike brought for
many women of Barnsley saw a wider involvement in local political and Trade Union affairs as
well as the rise of international women’s campaigning.102 ‘Women came along that had
traditionally been tied to the kitchen sink. They were there to make the dinner when the
husband came home from work, look after the children and run the household. Actually a full
time job for them as well. But during the strike they came along and learnt to liberate
themselves. One woman said to me…do ya know Jean, I’ve got mi own pen now…AND I use it!’103
The now iconic photograph of journalist Lesley Boulton about to be struck with an extended
baton (picture 14) saw her raised to the forefront of women’s support groups and along with
other prominent members went throughout Europe speaking at conferences to gain support
and funds for the miners’ cause. Two tours of Germany and a rather awkward moment in
Northern Ireland saw her unknowingly accept money from the IRA, a factor not surprising
considering their mutual hatred of the Thatcherite Government at that time.104
100 Barnsley Chronicle 27 July 1984. P11.
101 Unknown Author. The Heart and Soul of it: A documentation of how the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike affected
1985), p134.
102 Barnsley Chronicle 8 March 1985, p38.
103 Anniversary video with Jean Miller, Women Against Pit Closures, Experience Barnsley.
104 Oral history interview with Lesley Boulton (SYW1102), South Yorkshire women in industry,
Experience Barnsley Archive.
Picture 14 LesleyBoulton

The success of international support campaigns by the women of Barnsley became apparent
relatively early on in the Strike. ‘I remember one time I got a phone call from Belgium saying in
very broken English. We have got three vehicles. We will turn up in three days time. When they
turned up they rang and said we have three articulated wagons and I still to this day can’t
believe how much came out of three articulated wagons. It’s not a small building, the village hall
in Mapplewell. So we filled one ballroom with clothes, the smaller ballroom with toys, the
kitchen with food and the cloakrooms and toilets with toiletries. But we had to have those
things out of there and sorted out by Christmas because the Caravan Club had booked it for
Christmas’.105 The Strike brought out an extension of the camaraderie that was evident down
the pits. Not only on an international basis but more so within the communities. Mining
communities were not entirely homogeneous and without the support of local business owners
many families would have fell on even harder times. The notion has to be considered that some
business owners were offering credit for their own survival and not for the charity of the
community. The Strike created an economic domino effect within mining communities which
saw the gradual closing of local shops and pubs. The offering of credit would ensure a longer
survival – that is if they ever received payment.106 Nevertheless, the spirit of a mining
community shone through and parcels were received regularly from the Co-operative (pictured
below) to name just one larger business. Local bakers would ‘drop pies off on a Friday’ and soup
kitchens were set up throughout the coalfield.107
106 Channel 4 ‘Coal not dole: People to People’ (1984), uploaded 8/4/2013, [accessed 23/1/2015].
107 Oral interview with Anne Scargill (SR389.1/p/cd), 21/7/2010, National Coal Mining Museum for
England.
Picture 15 Donation sortinginMapplewell.

Soup kitchens are an element of the Strike which has become synonymous with women’s
contributions. Not far away from their previous domestic roles, many women reminisce on the
happy hours spent in soup kitchen where even grandmothers would help by washing up.108
Often situated in Miners’ Welfares or the local Village Hall, the soup kitchen provided
sustenance as well as social interaction all over the Borough. Funding from the central WAPC
campaign was side lined for the kitchens. ‘We set up kitchens because we knew that people
needed food, needed meals and also needed that community and that coming together. My
kitchen worked three days a week and ran on volunteers. We had a hundred pounds every week
apart from two weeks in the year from the Barnsley central WAPC because their job was to raise
funds to give out and keep the kitchens and the food parcels going. People grew things and
donated it, shops donated things, and the Co-op in particular gave everything instead of
throwing it away. There was lots of rice, pasta, cereals, and things like that really; people didn’t
know what it was or how to use it. So it was also about teaching people how to eat things they’d
never eaten before as well.109 The sacrifices made by the women; the wives, the sisters, the
mums, are all too apparent in the views of schoolboy Jonathan, ‘Our mum has been involved in
the BWAP since the beginning of the Strike. She used to be at home and make our tea when we
came home from school. Now she expects us to make her tea! We wouldn’t mind this so much if
she tidied our bedrooms but she says we are old enough to clean our own. We don’t see our dad
much either, he’s always at the Union’.110
Picture 16 A typical soup kitchen
108 Oral interview with Anne Scargill (SR389.1/p/cd), 21/7/2010, National Coal Mining Museum for
England.
110 Unknown Author. Women Against Pit Closure, Barnsley Women Vol.2 (Barnsley, 1985), p29.

Picture 17 Father and son enjoy a soup kitchen meal together.
Picture 18 Hungry picketers waiting for their food.

If getting used to the realities of being on strike was difficult, then the prospect of Christmas
1984 was unthinkable. Indeed many families dismissed festivities as the hardship of the Strike
became widespread and infused into reality. ‘I saw the poverty; I saw the despair, the fear again
because over a year people had accumulated massive debts and sold whatever they had. So of
course as a Social Worker I was going into homes, where I was invited to sit down for example
on the only chair they had left in the house’.111
The response to Christmas 1984 was fuelled by a characteristic which is felt to be all but gone
from the former mining communities thirty years on. The camaraderie and support was so great
that upon reflection by some of those who were there, many memories of the hardship of
Christmas in particular have been overshadowed by the true spirit of a mining community.112
Gwen White tells of her Christmas, ‘well we did have a Christmas dinner. My husband and his
brother gorrup and went to a butcher and fetched a hundred and odd turkeys. The might have
been a leg missing, or a wing missing, but we got a hundred and odd turkeys and we got the full
Christmas dinner and we gave it out Christmas Eve. My son, he’d be about twelve or thirteen. He
knew what the strike was all about so he dint expect owt for Christmas. He said mum don’t
worry. Anyway my mum and my family put together and we got him a second hand bicycle. He
gorrup next morning and there was a bike there for him which he sat and cried actually because
he dint expect anything. Probably one of the best Christmases we had cos we’d got nowt and it
wa probably one a best’113
Picture 19 a Christmas party 1984
111 Anniversary video with Sandra Hutchinson, Women Against Pit Closures, Experience Barnsley.
112 Oral history interview with Jack Wallis (SR200/p/cd), 15/11/1999, National Coal Mining Museum for
England.
113 Anniversary video with Gwen Wight, Women Against Pit Closures, Experience Barnsley.

The Miners’ Strike 1984/85, for the women of Barnsley and throughout the country, was very
much a catalyst for progress towards equality. The Strike represented more than just an
industrial conflict with short-term aims. It represented the opportunity for an organised
women’s movement and the chance for women to prove to society what they were capable of.
‘The dispute has brought out tremendous spirit of comradeship among the women and given
them the opportunity of demonstrating a capability that probably many of them didn’t realise
they had’.114 ‘We wa happy, the wa happy days, the want sad days. Just because we dint have any
money in us pockets didn’t mean to say ya know…cos it dint matter to us. We wa working
towards what we believed in’.115 ‘We got women that went to university, got good jobs, and
they wunt have thought if it hadn’t been for the strike, they wunt have even thought of trying to
go to a university or anything’.116 Not only did the Strike dramatically change women’s future on
a professional level, perhaps even more so it changed their lives on a personal level. ‘I was
always known as so and so’s mother or so and so’s wife, never ME. I was always judged as a wife
or a mother, never me. It gave me [the strike] the confidence, it gave me knowledge and I
suddenly realised that I don’t have to stick in this unhappy marriage that I’d existed in for thirty
odd years and being down trodden, and being told I was thick and stupid and I didn’t
understand anything. And so it also gave me the confidence to leave home. I left my husband
and I’ve forged my own life and I love every minute of it’.117
A Conclusive Legacy
In the years after the Strike up until the mid-1990s pits throughout Barnsley continued to close.
Rather surprisingly at this point The Times claimed that research had appeared to indicate that
Barnsley was ‘the nation’s favourite town’.118 A rather ironic viewpoint from ‘outsiders’
considering the town was undergoing the most dramatic downfall in its history. The residents of
Barnsley would surely disagree with it being their favourite town considering the eradication of
its main industry and economic foundations. While national employment levels rose by 1.2%
during 1984 – 1993, Barnsley’s dropped by around 15%. Real unemployment was estimated at
almost 25% which was higher than any other district in South Yorkshire. As a consequence
South Yorkshire had the lowest GDP per capita of any region in the UK. Barnsley’s forecasted
114 Barnsley Chronicle 8 March 1985, p38.
115 Anniversary video with Gwen Wight, Women Against Pit Closures, Experience Barnsley.
117 Anniversary video with Betty Cook, Women Against Pit Closures, Experience Barnsley.
118 The Times 22 February 1998.

real growth GDP as a cumulative percentage change during 1996 - 2002 was only 10.5%. This
placed Barnsley in the bottom quartile of all 459 local authority regions in Britain.119 As a
means of ‘rejuvenating’ the communities of the area, Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council
(BMBC) engaged with a ‘Coalfield Task Force’. By 1998 the consequences of pit closures were
having social effects. The borough was heading backwards in terms of social deprivation and
had 9,600 houses unfit for habitation and 7,680 in need of major repair.120 The Coalfield Task
Force reported the need for dramatic improvements in; housing stock (private/public sector
partnerships, education action zones, business support, infrastructure and miner’s welfare
funding.121
Now, in 2015, the suggested strategic objectives for rejuvenation by BMBC have had over fifteen
years to take effect. A shadow of its former self and Barnsley is emblazoned with retail and
industrial estates filled with large scale chain stores which minimise the social benefits of the
high street. Arguably, BMBC have failed to provide the business support they promised to small
business owners as the town centre is a flush with pound shops and an ever changing array of
entrepreneurship which leads to a fast demise. The economic benefits that should be brought in
by large industrial companies which are situated on former pit sites are kept within the confines
of their own chains. With zero hours contracts being the relative norm and a fast turn-over of
staff from outside the area, the local working population fail in achieving any sense of
camaraderie which can then be filtered back into the communities. The ‘communities’ of
Barnsley hold very little resemblance to that of when king coal was in town. Continually
amongst the most deprived villages in the country, Barnsley has one of the lowest incomes per
household in the country, Education is also dramatically substandard. With crime levels ever
rising and housing prices lower than the national average, the ‘communities’ of Barnsley a
generation on from the Strike continue to live in its legacy.122 To reflect on picture 1 at the
beginning of this piece, killing the pits quite literally killed the community.
The Miners’ Strike 1984/85 for the people of Barnsley, as too for many other former coalfield
communities, still lives on, and indeed its legacy will be traceable for generations to come. King
coal created an arena for the rise of charismatic Marxist leadership in the area, a factor which is
felt indicative to the importance of the industry to the communities of Barnsley. Helped along by
119 Sheffield Hallam University Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, England’s Coalfields:
Two Case Studies ‘A Vision for the future 1998’ (Sheffield, 1998), p20.
120 Ibid, p21.
121 The Coalfields Task Force Report, Making the difference: A new start for England’s Coalfield
Communities (London, 1998).
122Unknown author, ‘Open Data Communities: Barnsley Dashboard’,
www.opendatacommunities.org/showcase/dashboard/local_authorities/metropolitan-district-
council/barnsley [accessed 16/4/15].

the rise of Trade Unionism, Barnsley’s militancy can be linked directly to the General Strike
1926 and towards progressive politics within both social reform and industrial policy for its
maintenance thereafter. Labour’s grasp on the area was influenced by a rise in living standards
which extended a sense of loyalty towards the Labour Party that still exists to this day. The
communities which the industry once bred have been a focal point for academics of various
disciplines for centuries. The intriguing characteristics of these communities were magnified
when their very existence became under threat in 1984. Although divides did occur, the vast
majority of people within Barnsley’s communities were avid supporters of the Strike. So much
so that even within the rank-and-file of other areas, they were labelled as having greater
militancy. Women’s involvement in the conflict proved to be central to its bitter length. The
Strike was not all doom and gloom and in many instances allowed for the liberation of women
from the more traditional role of domestic engineering and motherhood. Thirty years on and
within the midst of Barnsley’s continuing economic and social hardship, there is still a need to
have a more comprehensive assessment of the Strike’s legacy. No longer one of ‘the beastliest
towns in the country’123 but with ever growing ‘strange and slightly sinister’124 spectacles
emerging not from the pit but from the job centre, it would appear that Ayten’s observations of
a ‘race fallen from the common rank of men and doomed, or in a kind of purgatory, to wear
away their lives in these dismal shades’125, could not be more appropriate since the
overthrowing of king coal. To show a complete ‘history from below’ understanding of the
Strikes terminal legacy it is felt beneficial for me to have risen from these dismal shades and
escaped the confines of purgatory, all of which would not have happened without the Miners’
Strike 1984/85.
123 George Orwell, Road to Wigan Pier (London, 1986), p47.
124 Bernard Newman, British Journey (London, 1946), p48.
125 Rosalind Williams, Notes on the Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society, and the
Imagination, Cambridge, Mass., 1990, p.66.

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Figures

Figure 1 National Coal Board flier encouraging miners to come back to work,
1985(SY731/V1) Sheffield Archives.
Pictures
Picture1 ‘When they close a pit the killa community’
http://www.cpcml.ca/Tmlw2013/W43014.HTM
Picture2 TheTimes rebel
http://find.galegroup.com.libaccess.hud.ac.uk/ttda/newspaperRetrieve.do?sgHitCountType=No
ne&sort=DateAscend&tabID=T003&prodId=TTDA&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R3
&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=6&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3A
FQE%3D%28tx%2CNone%2C11%29rebel+miner%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28da%2CNone%2C1
1%291984+-+1985%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28MB%2CNone%2C8%29%22TTDA-
1%22%24&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&userGroupName=hudduni&inPS=true&
contentSet=LTO&&docId=&docLevel=FASCIMILE&workId=&relevancePageBatch=CS33787722
&contentSet=UDVIN&callistoContentSet=UDVIN&docPage=article&hilite=y
Picture3 Battling police at Hatfield 21 August 1984
http://www.minersadvice.co.uk/yourview31_Re-visiting_the_miners_strike_1984-85.htm
Picture4 The Aftermath
http://www.anorak.co.uk/218571/news/the-miners-strike-silver-jubilee-in-pictures.html/
Picture5 Street scenes at Cortonwood
http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/38320/Still+the+Enemy+Within+-
+hilarity,+defiance+and+tears+as+miners+recall+their+struggle
Picture6 Policeat Armthorpe
https://libcom.org/library/come-and-wet-this-truncheon-dave-douglass
Picture7 Mounted policeat Hatfield
http://www.minersadvice.co.uk/yourview31_Re-visiting_the_miners_strike_1984-85.htm
Picture8 Injuries at Rossington
http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/nostalgia/retro-police-in-violent-clashes-with-miners-on-
1984-s-yorks-picket-lines-1-6696260
Picture9 ‘Policing’ outside the NUM offices,Barnsley
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/03/02/miners-strike-30th-anniversary-
pictures_n_6782742.html

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