WILL STONE is frustrated by a performance that chooses to garble the lyrics and drown the songs in reverb
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Moving new requiem to honour the miners
SHIRLEY CLARK is moved by a dignified and defiant new work, written to commemorate the strike in 84-85
DIGNITY: A man after laying a wreath, at a memorial dedicated to miners who lost their lives while working in collieries, during the Miner's strike 40th anniversary rally in Dodworth, Barnsley, March 2, 2024.
RITA DI SANTO points out the social experience of exploitation and oppression that inform the popular winners at this year’s festival
PETER MASON is tickled by a new book and exhibition that mine the rotten anachronism of the monarchy for laughs
A Nazi zeppelin whodunnit, death amidst detoxification, a twistaholic’s delight, and noir fiction for criminals
STEVE JOHNSON salutes the mellifluous tones and clear-minded political message of a uniquely relevant Birmingham-born singer-songwriter
STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
“HERE we go, here we go for the women of the working class!”
Chesterfield Parish Church — The Crooked Spire — rang out with this anthem from the ’84-85 Miners Strike on the evening of Saturday October 12.
The occasion was the inaugural performance of A Northern Requiem, written by local teacher and musician Jonathan Francis. Over 300 people were in the audience. Francis wrote it to commemorate the strike and the communities “who were left to fend for themselves when everything they knew had collapsed.”
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In the last of four extracts from her new memoir, former NUM headquarters staffer HILARY CAVE recalls the 1985 campaign in the Nottinghamshire coalfield against the breakaway unions who went on to sabotage the great strike
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
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