In Photos: The miners’ strike, 40 years on

On March 6, 1984 min­ers across the coun­try walked out. The indus­tri­al action came after the Nation­al Coal Board (NCB) announced that 20 col­lieries would close, lead­ing to wide­spread job loss­es in areas where min­ing was the pre­dom­i­nant dri­ver of local economies. The strike turned into a bit­ter, divi­sive, and long dis­pute that had huge ram­i­fi­ca­tions on indus­tri­al rela­tions in the UK through weak­en­ing of the trade union move­ment, as well as for strik­ing work­ers – many of whom were left with­out pay for a full year.

In March 1985, a demon­stra­tion was organ­ised in Lon­don to mark the one year anniver­sary of the begin­ning of the min­ers’ strike. While the strikes were offi­cial­ly called off a few days ear­li­er on March 3, a large crowd gath­ered on March 6 to show sol­i­dar­i­ty and call for ​“no vic­tim­i­sa­tion” of strik­ers. To pro­mote the march, a poster was pub­lished by the Minework­ers Defence Com­mit­tee with ​‘ONE YEAR!’ print­ed in bold sig­nage. It sat along­side details of the route of the march and a red and black pho­to­graph of a miner.

“This poster gave us the title for the show,” says Isaac Blease, the cura­tor of ONE YEAR! Pho­tographs from the min­ers’ strike ¹⁹⁸⁴⁄₈₅, which is cur­rent­ly on view at the Mar­tin Parr Foun­da­tion in Bris­tol until March 31. ​“On it is a pic­ture of a min­er look­ing into the dis­tance, sil­hou­et­ted. As we were putting togeth­er the final pieces we were look­ing at the pic­ture, along­side a pho­to quilt by Jen­ny Matthews and on that is a lit­tle pic­ture at the bot­tom left hand cor­ner. That is actu­al­ly the image of the min­er that is used in the ONE YEAR! poster.”

Mak­ing that con­nec­tion helped Blease to join the dots of the exhi­bi­tion, which com­mem­o­rates four decades since the begin­ning of the one of the most seis­mic years in British indus­tri­al rela­tions and polic­ing in liv­ing memory. 

Protests would often be bru­tal, and much of the country’s media cov­er­age – and cor­re­spond­ing pho­tog­ra­phy – focused on the vio­lence that broke out at pick­ets across the coun­try. The clash­es between min­ers and police offi­cers shipped in from across the coun­try would prove to be a lab­o­ra­to­ry for many of the protest sup­pres­sion tac­tics we still see in place today.

Fea­tur­ing pic­tures made by the likes of Howard Soo­ley, Chris Kil­lip, Philip Win­nard, John Stur­rock, Bren­da Prince, the afore­men­tioned Matthews, Roger Tiley and oth­ers, along with posters and ephemera – the exhi­bi­tion switch­es and refo­cus­es the lens away from news­pa­per and tele­vi­sion cov­er­age that dom­i­nat­ed nar­ra­tives and mem­o­ries of the strikes. While a hand­ful of skir­mish­es between police and pick­ets do fea­ture, there’s also a focus on the wider com­mu­ni­ty of the min­ers, pre­sent­ing an alter­na­tive his­to­ry of the strike through the shots.

“The media was a very impor­tant aspect of the min­ers’ strike – the pho­tographs were used against the min­ers in terms of demon­is­ing them,” Blease explains. ​“Images were used to illus­trate vio­lence and chaos in quite demon­is­ing and weaponised ways, but then on the oth­er hand pho­tographs were used to debase that media bias – through posters, pho­to­jour­nal­ists work­ing for left-wing and union press, and peo­ple like Stur­rock, John Har­ris, Prince and Imo­gen Young who were pho­tograph­ing the strike in a more holis­tic way.”

Many of the pho­tog­ra­phers fea­tured were part of the com­mu­ni­ties that they were doc­u­ment­ing. Philip Win­nard was one such exam­ple, as he was on strike him­self from the Barns­ley Main Col­liery. ​“When he went on strike, he took his cam­era along and start­ed record­ing his expe­ri­ences when he was pick­et­ing,” Blease says. ​“We want­ed to focus on how pho­tographs were used in dif­fer­ent ways and shared with friends and col­leagues. He com­piled these real­ly amaz­ing pho­to albums and they fol­low the strike chrono­log­i­cal­ly, start­ing with the first pick­et lines and fin­ish­ing with the return to work march­es a year later.

“They feel like fam­i­ly albums and spare no punch­es in how they record the strike,” he con­tin­ues. ​“There’s vio­lence, the intim­i­da­tion of strike break­ers, fundrais­ing com­mu­ni­ty activ­i­ties, newslet­ter­ing – there’s every­thing, and it gives an inti­mate famil­iar­i­ty with the event.”

Women also fea­ture heav­i­ly through­out the exhi­bi­tion, high­light­ing the oft-over­looked role they played in sup­port­ing – from those mak­ing food in the strik­ing min­ers’ kitchens to all female pick­et lines at the col­lieries. Pho­tog­ra­phers such as Bren­da Prince, who was a mem­ber of women’s only pho­tog­ra­phy agency For­mat, doc­u­ment­ed this.

“Prince was focus­ing a lot on women’s roles in the strike,” Blease says. ​“So min­ers’ wives, com­mu­ni­ty work, fundrais­ing, pick­et­ing them­selves, gath­er­ing food pack­ages, and they played a very impor­tant role. These pho­tog­ra­phers were not just focus­ing on the sen­sa­tion­al bat­tle that was going on, they were show­ing how com­mu­ni­ties were com­ing togeth­er, but also how com­mu­ni­ties were being destroyed by the dis­pute, and pho­tog­ra­phy was the medi­um that was catch­ing this.”

ONE YEAR! Pho­tographs from the min­ers’ strike ¹⁹⁸⁴⁄₈₅ is on view at the Mar­tin Parr Foun­da­tion until March 31

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