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Researched by John Lumsdon

North Staffs Miners Wives

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Bridget Bell North Staffordshire Miners Wives Action Group

The strike was a year-long struggle in which a community was attacked on all fronts - not only in the way the state was acting at the picket line level. In

North Staffs Miners Wives was formed in 1985 from the members of the ten food centres which were set

up in the 1984 strike around the North Staffs coalfield. When the strike ended, our aims were to

give support to the sacked miners and their families and to make sure they were never forgotten for the sacrifices they gave to the strike. We became

members of the Justice for Mineworkers Campaign.

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Staffordshire women were on the picket line because the area was subject to a lot of scabs. So women were absolutely critical to the strike. We had to be on the picket line as well as building support at all the other levels. Throughout the whole of the strike women got involved with speaking tours, organising major events, collections and so on.

North Staffordshire Miners Wives Action Group was established then and is still going today - we’ve been involved in the Stop the War Coalition here in Barnsley, where I live now. Brenda in Stoke-on-Trent is involved in anti-fascist work because they have a BNP councillor there. There is a line in the media that the strike politicised miners’ wives - I think this is very simplistic. Miners’wives were political, by the very nature of the mining community. The difference with the strike was that women became politically active in a way that they hadn’t been before. The strike threw up the possibility of organisation that wouldn’t have been necessary before. The nature of the struggle meant that it crossed national boundaries and crossed struggles. All of us benefited from that. You got a cross-fertilisation of all sorts of struggles.

For me, what was wonderful about it was that it demonstrated that in a time of struggle we can come together - as the left, with all our different groupings and different campaigns. I was involved in a single-issue campaign - domestic violence and women’s refuges - but that didn’t mean that I thought politics was about single issues. I thought what I was doing was a priority. As soon as the strike came along, it was quite clear within that community, where you had to put your energies. That happened with all the different groups. We all came together and formed a united front, and that was what was so wonderful about it. We know that when there is a serious attempt to destroy our class we can all unite. I can’t think of anything more inspiring than that.

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The miner's strike of 1984 - 1985 saw many families suffer great hardship as striking

workers lost all their pay and benefits. Food collection and distribution points like this one at Weston Coyney were set up to help struggling people.

Making food parcels for miners' families, Florence Colliery,

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Brenda Procter from the North Staffordshire Miners Wives Action Group in 1984

During the miner's strike of 1984 - 1985 many women became involved in the struggle and attended protests, raised money, manned picket lines and collected food. It was common during the strike for people to travel around the country attending meetings or protests; these two women from the North Staffordshire Miner's Wives Action Group are seen collecting money in Walthamstow Market, London.

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North Staffs

Miners' Wives

A timeline of The North Staffs Miners' Wives

North Staffs Miners’ Wives Action Group (NSMWAG) campaigned and fundraised for two years to make possible a magnificent sculpture dedicated to Joe Green and David Jones, two Yorkshire miners who were killed on picket lines during the year-long 1984-85 miners’ strike.

In neither case were those behind the deaths found or held responsible.

TRENTHAM PIT CAMP MEMBERS"The Pit Camp was set up on the 11th of January 1993 in the early hours of the

morning by the North Staffs Miners' Wives ACTION Group. Within hours of it being set up, it became the focal point for the local community to show their anger at the

government's decision to shut Trentham and turn the local area into an industrial wasteland, as not only would 1,400 miners be thrown on the scrapheap but another

5,000 jobs would also be threatened, leaving little hope for the future. Offers of support have inundated the camp, from people in all walks of life. Particular thanks

must go to Brent Miners' Support Group who has provided the caravan. Let's all stand together in the fight for jobs, as together WE WILL WIN!" (Text of Pit Camp leaflet

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action group which was formed in 1985 in the wake of the Miners' Strike to give support to sacked miners and their families.

Originally, members of the 10 food centres set up during the strike, around the coalfields of North Staffordshire in 1985.

• 1985 - Organised the 'Here we go in North Staffs' exhibition. It told the photographic story of the strike in North Staffs.

• 1986 - Worked to produce a show, 'Unfinished Business' telling the story of their experiences.

• 1989 - Recorded several songs from the show & sold them to raise money for sacked miners.

• 1991 - Commissioned a sculpture in memory of the miners killed in the strike. It's on permanent display at the Potteries Museum.

• 1993 - Set up camp outside the last local deep pit in North Staffordshire, Trentham Colliery, as part of a campaign to save it from closure. The camp is famous for the occupation of the pit's Number Two pit-shaft for three days by three of the women, Brenda Proctor, Bridget Bell, and Gina Earl. Outside the pit, a fourth, Rose Hunter, maintained communications. Eventually, the women agreed to leave - to be met, as they exited, by Arthur Scargill.The occupation was then made into a musical documentary play by the local New Vic Theatre, called 'Nice Girls'. It toured Paris and is now in the London Theatre Archive.

• 1994 - Made a one hour documentary called 'We Are Not Defeated' charting the miners struggle against pit closures in Stoke-on-Trent.

• 2003 - Campaigned on picket lines with striking fire fighters and also marched against the war in Iraq.

and now...

They have two aims. Firstly to make sure that the loyalty of the miners to their union is never forgotten and secondly to support modern day unions and their members during disputes.

Click on the link below. 

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http://youtu.be/wzwZfn_jn6s