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Women prove their worth
In the third extract from her new memoir, former NUM headquarters staffer HILARY CAVE recounts how women throughout the striking coalfields showed their mettle when the going got tough
march
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ONCE the strike began grassroots women’s groups started to grow in the coalfields. They set up communal kitchens and prepared food parcels, persuading food shops to offer discounts for their bulk-buying operations.
Local shops, whether independents or branches of large chains, had an interest in offering such discounts in strike areas because their takings had plummeted once miners had little or no income.
Soon the sheer scale of need, with their children hungry and needing new clothes, forced the women’s groups to expand their activities. They began hunting for donations of second-hand clothes, shoes, children’s pushchairs and babies’ bottles.
More from this author
In the second extract from her new memoir, former NUM headquarters staffer HILARY CAVE recounts the bitter struggle to provide sustenance for strikers’ families, and the invidious role of David Willetts – now in the House of Lords
In the first of four extracts from her new memoir, former NUM headquarters staff HILARY CAVE recalls challenging police intimidation during the miners’ strike, exposing how the full machinery of state was deployed against the working class
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In the second extract from her new memoir, former NUM headquarters staffer HILARY CAVE recounts the bitter struggle to provide sustenance for strikers’ families, and the invidious role of David Willetts – now in the House of Lords
In the first of four extracts from her new memoir, former NUM headquarters staff HILARY CAVE recalls challenging police intimidation during the miners’ strike, exposing how the full machinery of state was deployed against the working class
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
