E81: Miners' strikes 1972-4

Working Class History

Society & Culture, Education, History

5.0 • 813 Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2023

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Podcast episode about strikes by miners in Britain in 1972 and 1974, in conversation with Dave Douglass.
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Continuing our intermittent series of podcast episodes about the great strike of UK miners from 1984-5, we tell the story of what came beforehand. In this episode, we look at the historical background, and learn about the national wildcat strike in 1969, as well as the huge, nationwide official strikes of 1972 and 1974, which both defeated the Conservative government and eventually brought it down.

E81.1 bonus episode: more about Dave’s revolutionary politics, day-to-day work in the mines, and discussion of popular images of the 1970s in the UK today. Available exclusively for our patreon supporters.
More information about this episode, including sources, photographs, links, and eventually a transcript on the webpage for this episode: https://workingclasshistory.com/blog/e81-miners-strikes-1972-4/

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands, Jamison D. Saltsman and Fernando López Ojeda.
Episode graphic: © NLA/reportdigital.co.uk.
Edited by Louise Barry
Theme tune courtesy of the Easington Colliery Brass Band.

Transcript

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0:00.0	In the late 1960s, the revolutionary spirit sweeping the world reached the coal mining communities of Britain.
0:07.0	This resulted in a resurgence of militancy and massive strikes in 1972 and 1974, which transformed miners' lives,
0:15.0	and twice defeated the Conservative government. This is working class history.
0:34.7	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, add free episodes,
0:38.9	bonus episodes, free and discounting merchandise and other content.
0:42.6	For example, you can listen to an exclusive bonus episode to this with more of our interview
0:47.2	with Dave plus extra discussion of the three-day week and the 1970s in Britain in general.
0:52.9	Join us or find out more at patreon.com slash
0:56.2	working class history. Link in the show notes. As long-term listeners will know, we've been
1:02.8	producing an intermittent series of episodes about the Great Minor Strike in Britain of
1:07.4	1984 to 5, which was the most significant industrial dispute in recent UK history.
1:13.6	Our episode 13 was about the role of women in the strike, and our episodes 27 to 29 were
1:19.6	about LGBT plus people in the dispute.
1:22.6	But before making a mini-series about the strike itself, we realised that it's important to tell the story of the strikes by minors which preceded it.
1:30.3	Crucially, the massively successful national strikes in 1972 and 1974.
1:36.3	These strikes had their origins in the 1960s.
1:40.3	We just come through the 60s, we were in the 70s.
1:43.3	This was sex, drugs,, Rock and Roll Revolution.
1:47.0	Well, young miners wanted part of that at all.
1:49.5	You know, we didn't want to be confined to some great corridors of the trade union movement.
1:55.6	You know, we wanted to be wild as well.
1:58.6	This is Dave Douglas, a former coal miner, activist, author, a member of the National
	...

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