Object of the month, March 2010
Miners' Strike 1984- 1985: Cards of Support
March's object was chosen by Bethan Murray, volunteer:
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“I chose this collection of 5 cards, created by the group Artvists from Barnsley, Yorkshire, as I feel they are a great way to show support and to make the public aware of the situation in the mining communities. With their eye-catching images of the events through out the strike and bold colours, they draw people in to look at the contents inside. Once inside there are a number of different forms of literature from short facts to poetry on the subject of the strike and issues concerning the striking families." |
Miners’ Strike 1984- 1985
In March this year it will be 25 years since the miners’ strike of the mid-1980s came to an end. The strike started in March 1984 when the conservative government announced that they were to shut twenty pits with the loss of 120,000 jobs. This caused outrage amongst the miners leading to the president of the National Union of Miners’ (NUM), Arthur Scargill, describing the move as a ‘savage butchery’ of the industry. Within a week of this announcement, all of Yorkshire’s miners were on strike, with many other mining areas following their example.
The strike lasted for twelve long months, with miners and their families feeling the effects of losing part of the family income. Many were living on the food parcels donated by the general public. The strike came to an end with the miners’ defeat by the Thatcher Government; it was seen to have weakened Britain’s trade union movement.
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