E108: Women in the miners' strike, part 1
Working Class History
Working Class History
5.0 • 813 Ratings
🗓️ 7 August 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Our podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters. Our supporters fund our work, and in return get exclusive early access to podcast episodes without ads, bonus episodes, two exclusive podcast series – Fireside Chats and Radical Reads – as well as free and discounted merchandise and other content. Join us or find out more at patreon.com/workingclasshistory
Part 1 is about the background, how women’s organising began, and what forms it took.
- Part 2 is about the formation of a national organisation and national protest, the media, the end of the strike, the effect on the women, and possibilities for the future – Currently available for early listening for our supporters here on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/e109-women-in-2-134227615
Acknowledgements
- Thanks to our Patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands, Fernando López Ojeda, Nick Williams and Old Norm.
- Episode graphic: Courtesy Heather Wood
- Music courtesy of the Easington Colliery Brass Band
- Speech recording courtesy of Amber Films and Can’t Beat it Alone. The full film in multiple parts can be seen at www.amber-online.com
- This version edited by Tyler Hill. Original editing by Jesse French.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In March 1984, coal miners in Britain walked out on strike against the pit closure plan of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. |
| 0:09.0 | Miners' wives and other women started support groups up and down the country, which were instrumental in helping the workers hold out for nearly a year in an iconic dispute which changed Britain forever. |
| 0:20.0 | This is working class history. |
| 0:31.2 | Now before we get into the main episode, some eagle-eared listeners may remember hearing our |
| 0:36.4 | episode about women in the minor strike before. |
| 0:39.4 | Now, like all of our original episodes, it was basically made up a raw audio from our interview. |
| 0:45.5 | So there wasn't any narrative to fill gaps or explain context and kind of draw the story together into a whole. |
| 0:53.6 | So in addition to working on new episodes |
| 0:55.8 | for you, we're also going back over our earliest episodes to re-edit and release them in the |
| 1:01.9 | new narrative format we use for all of our later episodes. So the interview audio today is going |
| 1:08.1 | to be the same quality as before, but there'll be added |
| 1:11.0 | narrative with better quality audio to explain things and hopefully tell the story in a more |
| 1:15.9 | cohesive manner. |
| 1:17.3 | So we hope you enjoy it. |
| 1:19.2 | As a reminder, our podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters. |
| 1:23.2 | Our supporters fund our work and in return get exclusive early access to podcast episodes without ads, |
| 1:28.9 | bonus episodes every month, free and discounted merchandise and other content. |
| 1:33.1 | For example, our supporters can listen to both parts of this double episode now. |
| 1:37.7 | So if you can, please join our community and help keep our collective history of struggle alive. |
| 1:43.1 | You can learn more and sign up at patreon.com |
| 1:45.9 | slash working class history. Link in the show notes. We're working on a podcast mini-series |
| 1:52.1 | about the miners' strike from the perspective of miners themselves at the moment. So for today, |
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