The Miners' Strike: Forty Years On

The Miners’ Strike: Forty Years On (Recorded Streamed event from the LKN) | Thursday 24 April, 2.30pm | City Library | Bewick Rooms 1 and 2

A recorded screening of a live event held in March 2024.  

A look back at the impact and legacy of the Miner’s Strike. 

March marked the fortieth anniversary of the Miners’ Strike, the last great industrial battle of the twentieth century, which gripped the country for an entire year. 170,000 miners came out on strike across the coalfields of South Wales, the Midlands, North of England and Scotland in defence of their pits, which were scheduled for closure, and for their families and communities. 

 On the panel for a conversation on the significance and legacy of the Miners’ Strike will be Frances O’Grady, former General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress and the sister of a miner who was on strike; Siân James, a miner’s wife from the Swansea Valley who became a Labour MP; Robert Gildea, historian and author of Backbone of the Nation: Mining Communities and the Great Strike of 1984-85 and John Harris, Orwell Prize winning Guardian columnist and writer on British politics and pop music. Chaired by broadcaster and historian David Hendy. 

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