General secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions GAWAIN LITTLE calls for support and participation in the national partnership organised to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1926 general strike
How the great strike began
Britain’s coalfields were already seething with anger and lightning walkouts when the national strike against pit closures was triggered at Cortonwood colliery in Yorkshire on March 6 1984. PETER LAZENBY reports

HILARY CAVE was at the heart of the National Union of Mineworkers administrative apparatus at its headquarters in Sheffield from 1983 to 1988.
As national education officer she ran training courses preparing union activists for what the union knew was coming — an all-out attack by the Tory government of Margaret Thatcher on the miners and their union.
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