By Elliott West
“The women’s efforts were brilliant. Without them, we would have been sunk long before we were, long before we were. They can organise, and the women can organise. There’s no two ways about it.”
A Welsh miner
Introduction
It lasted 11 months and 26 days, a miner’s strike where the very heart of the community was fought for. Yet beyond the well-known events of events that unfolded during this year of industrial strife, lies a powerful and spirited tale of the women who rose up and became the very definition of the ‘Coal Not Dole’ slogan. These spirited women accepted this challenge nationwide but for this piece, I want to concentrate on the firebrand women of the Welsh valleys. These ladies shunned the myth of staying at home and went to the very heart of the fight. Organising food parcels for numerous striking families and joining the men on the hazardous picket lines.
BBC Wales brilliantly depicted this female fight in the recent programme ‘Strike! The Women Who Fought Back’ concentrates on six Welsh women who were there and would do it all again in a breath. A battle that changed the course of their lives and fought with humour, humility and inner strength Welsh women who wanted to be seen and involved. My piece looks deeper into this fascinating story and shows how courageous these women were to keep Welsh mining communities going during one of the most tumultuous industrial battles in British history.
The Done Thing
Being a miner in Wales was a profession that was handed down through the generations. It was a job that your Great Grandfather, Grandfather and Father would all have done and the pit was the natural path to assume when you left school. A dangerous but loved job where you emerged at the end of a working day, caked in coal dust, weary, tired but knowing that you had done an honest day’s graft. So to have that birthright threatened with the prospect of being cast aside on a dole queue, was a future that few could stomach. They had families to support, and mortgages to pay and without a wage, the very action of being able to provide food for the family table was in danger. Thatcher’s Conservative government didn’t see this, they were devoid of empathy.
This was a fight that they were determined to win and crush an enemy within that they saw as threatening the very core of the political establishment. Arthur Scargill was the instigator and his followers, an unruly mob who needed to be brought into line. To be hoodwinked back to work and shown that their fight was ultimately a lost cause. Only to have their jobs ripped out of their fingers a decade later when the pits were closed for good and the miners were thrown onto a desolate slagheap. Tumbleweed communities that would bear the scars of change for generations.
The Vital Link
The Welsh women in the mining communities already provided a vital role in the home lives of so many. They were the iron cog that kept the home going, juggling the pay packet to pay the bills and keep hot food on the table. Yet some couldn’t stomach the prospect of seeing their loved ones go without. Already employed as cooks, cleaners and office workers, they wanted to involve themselves and take up the mantle of the fight for social injustice. Those brave women who chose the path of activism saw past the fear of danger and set up soup kitchens, transformed community centres into places laden with sustenance, donated from across the globe, organised working groups and collected thousands of pounds to keep the movement going. Vital work that even Arthur Scargill went on to praise.
Donning t-shirts of support and shouting from the rooftops until their voices were hoarse, these Welsh women would go to the extremes of barricading themselves in mining buildings to scupper the supply of coal. They went on marches, gave speeches and stood on picket lines. These arduous women would sort through various vehicles such as a Mini Metro or a decommissioned ambulance to get the food to the mouths that needed it. It was an alternative welfare state that plugged the gap when the money wasn’t coming in. These busy bees would sort through the mountain of supplies and get them to communities in places like Neath and Swansea. So enraged was Margaret Thatcher by these actions that she tried to sever the cash supply. Yet she couldn’t fox these women as they got wind of it and withdrew the money from the bank and hid it under their beds.
A Helping Hand
“A crystallising moment for me was when Margaret Thatcher and Ian MacGregor described us as ‘the enemy within’. And I remember sitting there in front of the TV and thinking ‘Right you think I’m your enemy, I’ll be the best enemy you’ve ever had. You’ll be so sorry you even said that.”
Sian James
These Welsh women were emboldened by the support they received. A key ally was the LGBT community who came down in droves by bus, car and train to help the cause. A community that knew what it was like to be an outcast, joining marches, dancing the night away in community halls and taking the women to London to promote their fight on rallies as far as wide as on the street and key nightclub venues. These emboldened females would travel to places like Oxford University and hear the support from the students of the elite. An eye-opener that made many pursue their dreams after the strike, enrolling on degree courses and even standing as an MP. Sian James is one example.
This helping hand persuaded many husbands not to return to work and to stick out of the strike. In fact, Wales had one of the highest densities of striking miners during the strike. Communities were enraged by a government that didn’t understand the lives they led and how their concerns fell on deaf ears. These inhabitants of rows of terrace houses felt abandoned. A red wall that had years of economic decay inflicted on them. A constantly dripping tap of worry about where the next meal would come from and families forced to resort to higher purchases and purchases on a credit card. Concerns that ring true to this very day. A strike that severed communities and left many in an economic wasteland.