Miners' Strikes should "never be forgotten" 40 years on
Today marks 40 years since the start of the 1984-1985 Miners' Strikes
Last updated 6th Mar 2024
It's 40 years today since the start of the coal miners' strikes.
Thousand of jobs were left at risk after the government announced the closures of pits.
It began in Yorkshire but involved miners across the UK, with many families affected as some workers faced being unpaid for around a year during action.
The strike started after the National Coal Board announced in March 1984 that 20 pits would close with the loss of 20,000 jobs.
It lasted for a year and was mired in conflict – especially when the Nottinghamshire miners refused to follow colleagues in areas like Yorkshire and South Wales out on strike.
How did it affect people?
Shaun Mcloughlin worked at Kellingley Colliery, and he was 22 when the strikes started, he told us what he can remember: "The hardship and the struggles, everyone trying to keep their families safe and well, and it was a real hard 12 months.
"I spent most of my time looking round for work during the strike, I was 22-years-old, I'd bought a house one-year earlier, I'd just got married, I had a decent mortgage like anyone else at that time, I got a car on finance, so it was a struggle."
Shaun went on to work at the colliery for quite some time, which closed on 18 December 2015, marking the end of deep-pit coal mining in Britain.
Mr McLoughlin said a spate of recent documentaries on the strike had rekindled memories.
He said: “It brings it all back just how brutal it was.
“You can’t condone the throwing of the stones and bottles and everything but you also can’t condone the police action as well.
“The way they dealt with it, it was shocking and I’m sure, in this day and age, it wouldn’t be allowed to go uninvestigated.”
Mr McLoughlin said the mood was sombre when the decision was made to end the strike in March 1985.
He said: “Everybody had had enough because it caused so much animosity within families and everything.
“Brothers were against brother.
“I’ve known people who ended up splitting up with wives and partners during the strike because partners could take any more, because it was that hard.”
Mr McLoughlin said: “It should definitely be remembered.
“It’s a piece of history.
“It’s something that happened and it should never be forgotten.
“Basically, it should never happen again.
“People going 12 months without wages and that kind of stress and anxiety on families should never happen again.”
Barbara Lyons' husband Barry worked down the pit, across the Wakefield district for more than 30 years, he took part in the year long strike.
Barbara recalls how when times were tough, people were generous: "You learnt who your friends were, we had some friends who came one day with a bag full of food, and said their refrigerator had broken, but it hadn't, we knew it hadn't but it was their way of giving us something.
"We would have said no normally but with how the situation was, it was all gratefully received."
How is the anniversary being marked?
The anniversary is being marked by a new exhibition at the National Coal Mining Museum, in Wakefield, and chief executive Lynn Dunning said the aim has been to make sure the perspectives of all those involved are represented.
She said this includes the memories of the miners and their families who were on strike for a year.
But it also includes those who decided they had to return to work and those in the coalfields where most miners defied the call to walk out from National Union of Mineworkers president Arthur Scargill – most notably in Nottinghamshire.
Ms Dunning told the PA news agency: “The exhibition is really to try and give a voice to as many different opinions and experiences as possible.
“Quite often we hear a lot from the men who were on strike.
“We wanted to tell those stories but, also, redress the balance a little bit this time by hearing from some of the men and their families who didn’t go on strike and the impact that had on them and how they were treated in their communities but, also, the miners who went back early.
“We’re all familiar with the stories of people struggling to put food on the table, to pay their mortgages, etc. And some people did feel the pressure, as the strike went on, to go back to work early.”
Ms Dunning said: “It’s quite shocking, even today, after 40 years, to hear about somebody eating their pet rabbit because they had nothing else to put on the table.
“Those are stories that we all need to hear and experience.”
She said: “This exhibition takes the politics out of it and it’s really about what those people experienced and just how difficult it was.
“And, the long-term impact that that experience has had on those families and those communities comes across really strongly as well.”
She said: “It’s still such a raw topic. It’s still such an emotional topic for many people, what happened to those communities socially, economically, culturally.
“You can still see the impact of that in those communities today.”