Gay and lesbian support for the British miners' strike
Witness History
BBC
4.4 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 9 February 2021
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1984 a group of lesbians and gay men organised a benefit concert to support striking coal-miners. They sent the money they raised to a mining village in Wales. The miners' strike was the biggest industrial dispute in British history. Hear from Mike Jackson, one of the gay men inspired by the miners' struggle.
Photo: Campaign activists on the 1985 Lesbian & Gay Pride march. Credit: Colin Clews
Transcript
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| 0:36.0 | Hello and welcome to Witness with me, |
| 0:38.0 | Dina Newman. |
| 0:42.0 | Today I'm taking you back to December 10th, 1984 to a very special benefit concert held in London. |
| 0:51.0 | The concert was in support of British coal miners who were on strike |
| 0:56.2 | at the time and it was organised by a gay campaign group. |
| 1:03.0 | It's Saturday night and around 1,500 people have gathered in Camden at the Electric Ballroom nightclub. The crowd is more diverse than usual. |
| 1:18.0 | Gay and heterosexual Londoners, but there are also minors of all ages from remote mining villages across the country. |
| 1:26.0 | Striking miners had free entry because the event was in their benefit and yet many of them were bewildered by what they saw. |
| 1:34.8 | I never forget walking around the auditorium and this young Scottish miner stopped me and he said, |
| 1:40.9 | do you have something to do with this? I said, yeah. |
| 1:43.2 | Mike Jackson was one of the organizers from the campaign group, |
| 1:46.7 | Lesbians and gays, support the minors. |
| 1:49.4 | He was just |
| 1:55.0 | to bewilled, he said, I had no idea you people supported us. And I just remember gently put my arm round his shoulder and gesture him to the crowd with my other arm and saying, |
... |
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