Three-part documentary series reflecting on the miners’ strike of 1984/85, forty years on.
To mark the fortieth anniversary of the 1985/85 strike, we will no doubt see many documentaries, podcasts and radio shows in the media. First off the block is Channel Four with Miners’ Strike 1984: The Battle for Britain.
The three episodes cover three different topics. If you are familiar with the history of this milestone in political history, you will find that these programmes fill in a lot of the gaps that previous programmes have missed. If you are not familiar with the history – and with it being forty years ago, many will not be – these programmes are a little lacking in the context of the dispute.
The first episode looks at the personal conflicts within the community around Shirebrook pit in Derbyshire. It was probably the most split colliery in the country, with half the workforce on strike and half working (or strike breaking, depending on your point of view). Not only were the police present to help people cross picket lines, they had to be present in the village around the clock to stop both sides knocking lumps out of each other.
There are interviews with strikers, working miners, police officers, politicians, journalists and miners’ wives. Many of those interviewed still feel emotional about the dispute and you can see that reliving some of those events was quite painful. The programme looks at some of the emotional impact of the events that have not often been shown before, but there was, as suggested at the start of this review, a lack of context. No one explained why they felt it was important to be on strike or why they felt betrayed by those who worked. It doesn’t really go into detail of what the strike was about, but the lack of an explanation does leave more time for the emotional story and it is likely that many of the audience will be fully aware of the political context anyway.
The second episode focuses purely on one event. Orgreave. The town is now synonymous with the events that took place on 18th June 1984. A village that most people had never heard of prior to the strike, but the mere mention of the word ‘Orgreave’ now conjures up infamous images of Mounted Police in riot gear attacking shirtless pickets out in the sun. Try typing ‘Orgreave’ into google, and see what the algorithms prompt!
Miners’ leader Arthur Scargill had decided that closing down the Orgreave Coking Plant would be a symbolic victory that would send vibrations through the government and force them to talk to the National Union of Mineworkers and hopefully compromise. A mass mobilisation was agreed and miners from all over the country, including Cefn Fforest, travelled to Yorkshire for the biggest mobilisation of trade unionists for decades.
After months of police roadblocks disrupting pickets actually getting anywhere near their picket line, the police positively encouraged pickets this time, pointing them in the right direction. It soon became clear why.
Whilst Scargill had wanted to send a message to Margaret Thatcher, Thatcher wanted to send a message to Scargill. Police had also been mobilised from all over the country, armed with shields and batons and many of them on horseback. It was a trap.
And when the trap was sprung, the police brutally battered any picket they could, not caring that the picket had been peaceful. The programme features never before seen footage that shows the sheer brutality and callousness of the police on that day. If you think this review is being written with a bias towards the miners, it is impossible to watch this episode without being outraged by the lengths the state went to in its mission to put a stop to UK citizens exercising their lawful right to strike. You can see miners literally having their skulls cracked open for simply being there. Bizarrely, some were even assaulted whilst queuing up to buy ice-cream.
The programme includes interviews with prominent barristers such as Michael Mansfield KC and Gareth Pearce, who highlight beyond a shadow of a doubt that the police were out of control on that day.
There are even interviews with police officers on duty that day who were appalled by what was going on. The Met rocked up, smashed some skulls and went back to London. But local police had to live in those communities. To this day, there are many in former mining communities that do not trust the police because of what happened during the strike.
There has been an ongoing campaign ever since to find truth and justice for the actions of the state that day, but so far, ‘there is no justice, just us’. Visit the campaign website Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (otjc.org.uk)
If there were any justice, this episode would generate the same outrage that has recently been inspired by the recent drama about the miscarriage of justice for Post Office staff.
The third episode looks at the bigger picture. The dispute was never about coal, it was about Thatcher wanting to get revenge for the NUM bringing down the Heath Government in 1974. Wealthy individuals that had no connection with mining made significant financial contributions to working miners and financed the setting up of what would become the breakaway union, The Union of Democratic Miners. David Hart, an advisor to Thatcher was instrumental in ensuring there was no compromise and worked hard to organise the return to work.
There is also discussion about the surreal story of Roger Windsor, Chief Executive of the NUM going to Libya to meet Colonel Gaddafi to secure funds when the government sequestrated the NUM funds – after the union had been sued by working miners.
Those twelve months in 1984/85 changed the face of politics and industrial relations forever. New laws were passed to curb trade union activity. The police felt emboldened to start acting more like a paramilitary unit – most notably trashing the travellers’ convoy heading to Stonehenge in 1985. Unions started to question their connection with the Labour Party and disillusioned activists started looking at more creative forms of civil disobedience. The flap of the butterfly wings in 1984 are still having unintended consequences today.
And, of course, following the strike, one by one, all the coal mines were closed, leaving whole communities without a purpose. Some have still not recovered today.
That sense of community is still there though, as demonstrated by the number of people that have rallied around our campaign to restore Cefn Fforest Miners’ Institute.
The first episode of the series was screened on Channel Four on 25th January 2024. The next two episodes can be seen over the next two weeks, but if you have a smart TV or a laptop, all three are available to stream now. Click here to watch Miners’ Strike 1984: The Battle for Britain – Series 1: Episode 1 | Channel 4
The series is an interesting take on those events four decades ago, despite the lack of context. However, if you want more, the definitive story of the strike can be seen in the excellent documentary Still the Enemy Within, and it features our very own Ron Stoate! https://the-enemy-within.org.uk/