The miners’ riot van and invulnerable snowman
From repurposing a police van as the picket express to facing kidnap charges, former miner STEWART BROWN tells northern reporter Peter Lazenby tales of defiance from Bold Colliery during the 1984-85 strike
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STRIKING North West miner Stewart Brown talks about his experiences during the strike of 1984-5 as if they were everyday matters — things that just happened.
But even in the annals of that year’s momentous and sometimes horrific events, they were extraordinary. Using an old police bus to transport pickets and getting arrested for kidnap were among them.
Bold colliery outside St Helen’s in Merseyside was a militant pit and its miners supported the strike — a rarity in the north west area of the NUM.
More from this author
PETER LAZENBY reports on how trade unionists in Manchester are to celebrate the role of the city’s cotton industry workers in the fight for the abolition of slavery in the US civil war
With solidarity coming in from across Britain and the world, PETER LAZENBY speaks to the people who made Christmas 1984 a celebration of working-class resistance in Britain’s striking coalmining communities
The police attack on striking miners at will be once again marked as a day of infamy at the annual march and rally of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign in Sheffield next Saturday, writes Morning Star northern reporter PETER LAZENBY
A celebration of the labour and trade union movement will take to the streets of Wakefield in Yorkshire on Saturday, writes Morning Star northern reporter PETER LAZENBY
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In the second of two features, ex-miner PAUL KELLY records his experiences at the battle of Orgreave when police mounted an unprecedented attack on striking miners, and what he did in the aftermath of the great strike
In the first of two features, ex-miner PAUL KELLY shares his experiences as a 24-year-old striker in the miners’ strike against pit closures of 1984-5
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