Miners’ wives ‘had to support each other’ during strike

“We needed to be together and support each other because in this area, the majority of the miners were working,” recalls Sally Higgins.

The 73-year-old and her friend Sue Piotrowski, 71, were in the minority as the wives of striking miners in Nottinghamshire between 1984 and 1985.

About three-quarters of the country’s 187,000 miners went on strike, but in Nottinghamshire, only around a quarter joined the action out of 30,000 people.

The Notts Women Against Pit Closures campaign had more than 30 groups, representing pit communities across the county.

Ms Higgins, part of the Mansfield Women’s Support Group, said: “It was the worst year, it was the best year, horrible things happened, good things happened.”

The nationwide walk out between March 1984 and March 1985 was a defining moment in the history of British coal mining and was the biggest industrial dispute in post-war Britain.

40 years on, Ms Higgins, from Rufford in Nottinghamshire, has conflicting emotions of that year.

When her husband went out on strike, she thought they could cope in the short term, but she had no idea how long the dispute would last.

“Summer was OK, but then it came to winter…the cold, no coal, it was cold and horrible.”

“How on earth did we manage without a wage for a whole year?,” she said.

Despite the difficulties they faced during the strike, she also remembers a real sense of community as women rallied round to help each other.

“The camaraderie, the Christmas parties, the best we’d ever had. We had gifts from everywhere,” she said.

Many women had to support their families in ways they had never envisaged, becoming public speakers while travelling the country to raise money, so they could feed and support their loved ones during the strike.

Ms Higgins helped at a soup kitchen to feed striking miners and also spoke publicly to raise funds.

She said the women supporting the strike made it the best year and gave each other the confidence to be who they are today.

The strike was a last attempt by the mining unions to save the industry after the National Coal Board announced 20 pits in England would have to close with the loss of 20,000 jobs.

In Nottinghamshire, the majority of miners chose to carry on working, which caused divisions in communities.

Only a quarter of the county’s miners joined the national strike, according to the National Coal Mining Museum.

Sue Piotrowski, from the Ollerton Women’s Support Group, remembers feeling isolated when her husband chose to join the strike.

“You had to straighten your back, pull yourself up from your boot strings and just stare them down,” she recalled.

“You’ve got to believe in what you were doing and I think if we believed in it, that gave you strength.”

“We weren’t fighting for money, we were fighting for our community, our jobs, for our livelihood.”

The experiences of women during the miners’ strike are part of an exhibition in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.

‘Into the Light’ Exhibition –  Notts Women Against Pit Closures 1984-1985 is at Nottinghamshire Mining Museum.