JUST over six months into the 40th anniversary of the great miners’ strike of 1984-85 — and what an amazing year it’s been so far.

Early in 2023 women from all over Britain decided to get together to celebrate the work done by women in that year of struggle, to commemorate those women who were involved and to inspire younger women to realise that together they can do great things.

Women have always been the backbone of working-class communities, no less so in mining communities where they not only “kept house” but they went out and did great things.

Their lives were hard, they had to be strong. Those women knew the dangers of coalmining, they saw it first-hand as many of their loved ones were killed, maimed or lived a life struggling to breathe due to coal dust on their lungs.

Women had on many occasions waited outside pit gates when there were accidents, they stood clutching their young, hoping and praying their husband, father, brother would be brought out alive.

During the great struggle of 1926 it was the women who set up soup kitchens, the women who kept the family together, the women who in many cases went without food while their husbands went on the picket line or were out trying to raise funds.

In my own village of Easington in Co Durham, it was women who fought to have indoor toilets instead of the “netty” at the bottom of the yard.

It was the women who took to the streets to fight for baths to be installed to replace the tin bath that hung on the wall in the yard.

Many women, long gone, are sometimes forgotten. Elizabeth Pease Nichol, raised as a Quaker, attended the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention.

Annie Errington, miner’s wife, played a great role in the strike of 1926 when she was a Chester le Street guardian. Errington was 38 years old before she had the right to vote.

The match girls and women, who fought their evil employer, who knew the dangers of allowing them to work with phosphorus.

So many great women — hard acts to follow indeed but women fight on and have been involved in so many modern-day struggles — Greenham Common, CND, the Dagenham women, the “Headscarf Revolutionaries” of Hull and so many more.

During this 40th anniversary year women have risen to the challenge again. We want to show the world that we women in ex-mining communities are still strong, we are still fighting.

We want to show there is much fight left in us. We want the powers that be to recognise that we are not going away. They may have taken the pits, they may have in many ways decimated our communities, but they will never take our hearts or our minds.

There have been many celebrations already this year, starting with a rally in Durham city, organised by National Women Against Pit Closures (NWAPC), which was attended by hundreds of women, young and old. Women marched heads held high through the streets of Durham urged on by the crowds of people lining their path.

North Staffs support group led by Rose Hunter organised many events in and around their area. Women like Kay Sutcliffe, Kent miner’s wife who has helped organise events in their area.

Aggie Curry, Doncaster, Betty Cook, Barnsley, Anne Donlan, Nottingham, Liz French, Sian James, Wales, Mandy Stone, Tracey Pepper, Vonni Hardman and so many more strong women out there inspiring young women, getting young women to take the struggle forward, to ensure our voices are heard.

As I write, an event by the Co Durham area of NWAPC is coming to an end on Sunday at Beamish Museum. We approached the museum earlier this year to ask if we could have a women's banner exhibition in the Miners’ Welfare Hall and we were welcomed with open arms.

That day’s event grew into a nine-day event of Women in Protest which is running across Beamish. The museum staff have been so good. They arranged a suffragette rally and march, an exhibition of memorabilia from the strike in the lamp cabin, our own secretary of NWAPC Lynn Gibson took on the persona of Annie Errington when she relayed one of Annie’s rousing speeches to families in the chapel.

Every day Women Against Pit Closures banners have been marched through the centre of Beamish, the cinema is showing mining-related films, some great creative workshops and so much more.

There is so much more happening this year. NWAPC’s latest project is an international women’s quilt. The idea is women’s groups from around the world who have said they want to take part will receive a square of material on which they will depict what their group does.

The squares will be returned to Mary Turner in Durham who is the lead in this project and who as a Durham quilter will sew the squares together.

North Staffs Miners’ Support group have an event coming up on November 16 to celebrate Asian communities’ support during and since the miners’ strike. This event is at Joiners Square in Hanley, where there will be speakers, dancers from the Asian community and the film The Women of 10 Downing Street.

The Nottingham Mining Museum is closed now for the winter but it has a great exhibition about women in mining communities and is worthy of a visit.

NWAPC Durham is busy putting together a book of poems written by women and Jean Spence Seaham is the lead.

March 1 sees the end of our 40th anniversary events and we intend to celebrate with an event in Redhills, the Pitmans Parliament in Durham. 

There will be speakers, exhibitions, music, choir, and I’m sure there will be many more stories of that great year told as well as plans for the future.

Heather Wood lives in the former mining community of Easington in Co Durham and is former secretary of National Women Against Pit Closures. Her book, Just a Pit Lass, was published in October last year.