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ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends a brilliant collection of poems written to accompany stunning images of the Miners’ strike
discord

Strike
Sarah Wimbush
Stairwell books £15

EVERYTHING the NUM predicted on its badges and posters during 1984-5 did come true.

There is no British coal industry left, not even in Nottingham. Youth unemployment in the former coalfields rocketed and has still not come down just as many former miners never worked again, spending their non-working years claiming dole not coal, which remained a cheap import from Poland.

What used to be called the working class are now the working poor and the absolutely skint.

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