FEATURE
A VERY LONG 12 MONTHS IN
DERBYSHIRE’S HISTORY… It is 40 years this month since the 1984/85 miners’ strike started, which many have since described as a ‘civil war’, as Barrie Farnsworth reports – plus recollections from Chesterfield Alderman Steve Brunt, then a striking miner, and local policewoman Sally Midgley.
O
N March 6, 1984, the Conservative government announced the closure of 20 coal mines, making 20,000 miners redundant – but National Union of Mineworkers’ president, Arthur Scargill, thought they planned to close a lot more collieries. The strike began in Yorkshire, where miners at Cortonwood colliery struck 16 Reflections March 2024
following a local vote. Then the NUM president announced a national strike on March 12, 1984, although an official ballot was not held among miners about this. The strike, which lasted a year, was the catalyst that changed the political, economic and social history of the nation forever – and places like Derbyshire, with many pits back then, suffered
more than most of the country. Mining communities were badly scarred, and some have never fully recovered. An estimated 20,000 people were injured during the course of the strike; and three men were killed – two on the picket lines and a taxi-driver who was driving a coal miner, who had crossed the picket lines, to work. To advertise call 01246 550488