Keith Flett, “Miners Support Groups in London 1984/5”.
Paper presented at the New Socialist Approaches to History seminar, Institute of Historical Research, October 4th 2004
The twentieth anniversary of the 1984/5 miners strike has sparked several publications and conferences which have covered a wide range of events and issues related to the strike. Issues such as whether the miners could have won, the role of the police and the State and the women’s support groups have all been looked at, together with many memoirs from those active at the time.
One issue that remains largely hidden from the historical record is the activities of miners support groups, and particularly those in large towns like London which had no pits and where the entire work of the groups was one of solidarity with working class people elsewhere in the country. The nature of support work in the capital was different, at least in detail, to those areas where striking miners actually lived. A key point here of course is that the London Boroughs and the workplaces and communities they contained were not directly impacted by the physical hardships of the strike and hence had an ability to raise funds unparalleled elsewhere in the country.