Nottinghamshire’s positive connotations of “rebel” in British popular culture came into shocking, contrary high relief with the great miners’ strike of 1984-85. No phrase captures Notts better at that time than “County Under Siege” – the title of Alan R. Griffin’s monograph of immediacy and witness to the events.
source: Backbone of the Nation by Robert Gildea
In contrast to Yorkshire and Durham miners who immediately pledged their support to the National Union of Mineworkers’ call to strike, Notts resisted but fractured. Therein lies the primary difference in connotation of the words “under siege.” Easington, in County Durham, was under siege from the police who occupied the town. Orgreave in South Yorkshire was under siege in an even more violent encounter. Notts’s siege involved the police as well, but it also was within and tragic, similar – though without the bullets and bombs – to the sieges taking place in the central Illinois coal belt in the early 1930s when miner fought miner over the organization and “cleanliness” of the union and its goals.
As vividly described and analyzed in four principal works (see below) and brilliantly portrayed in Season 1 of the BBC drama, Sherwood, Notts split – though not equally – between the majority of miners (NUM) who chose to keep on working and the minority that later created their own Union of Democratic Mineworkers (reminiscent of the creation of the Progressive Miners of America and their divorce from the United Mine Workers of America, which happened in 1932 in Illinois).
KEY SOURCES (see Dig Deeper web page for full citations)
County Under Siege. Nottinghamshire in the Miners’ Strike 1984-5 by Alan R Griffin
Look Back In Anger by Harry Paterson
Backbone of the Nation by Robert Gildea
The Nottinghamshire Miners, the Union of Democratic Mineworkers and the 1984-85 Miners Strike: Scabs or Scapegoats? by David Amos
The miners strike began in Yorkshire on March 6, 1984. By March 8 the Scottish miners were on strike. On March 9 Durham and Kent went out on strike. On March 12 the strike was national. But not in Notts. On March 9 Notts had called for a pithead ballot and a few days later it was clear that Notts miners by a majority opposed the call the strike. On March 12 flying pickets (as they were called), mostly from South Yorkshire, arrived in Notts to try to dissuade or impede Notts miners from working. As dramatically depicted in Sherwood, a huge police presence entered Notts to protect and enable non-striking miners to work. This is when a young striking Notts miner from Ollerton, David Jones, was kicked so hard in the chest by police that he died. The working Notts miners persevered amidst harassment from some of their now striking former comrades. On April 5 Notts miners in a majority voted to keep working normally. But the antagonism between working and striking Notts miners continued. Dramatically, on December 11, Notts miners voted overwhelmingly in support of an initiative to make their area within the NUM semi-independent and on December 20, Notts miners – unhappy with national NUM leadership – voted to reduce the power of the NUM national leaders. But they explicitly decided at that moment not to secede from the national union. On January 10, 1985 – as the strike continued – the NUM Executive threatened to expel the Notts area from the union and on January 14 the NUM area council of Notts suspended its general secretary. On March 3, 1985 – a year after the strike began – it ended in defeat for the NUM. But the tremendous antagonism between working and striking miners did not end when they returned to the pits.
The NUM still existed at the end of the strike. And the miners who had worked through the strike then decided to officially create their own union, separate from the NUM: the Union of Democratic Mineworkers. The vote on October 23, 1985 was 72% in favor of the UDM. Again, as represented in Sherwood, the visceral emotions of the two sides of the strike – despite the numerical imbalance – have continued into the present day. And the irony, of course, is that Mrs. Thatcher (through 1990) and the governments that succeeded her (John Major, Conservative 1990-1997; Tony Blair, Labour, 1997-2007) closed the mines anyway. The working miners had gained, if lucky, a decade more of employment.
source: Backbone of the Nation by Robert Gildea
In considering the rebellion of Notts against the NUM during the miners strike of 1984-85, it is important to realize that this independent streak had antecedents. xxx
Although Durham and Nottinghamshire were on opposite sides of great miners strike, Notts was well aware the Durham Miners Gala and its extraordinary banners. Notts miners organized their own gala in 1949 and it was held continuously through 1983. What makes its end date interesting is that the Notts gala did not survive the miners strike, let alone the demise of the collieries whereas the Durham Miners Gala did, although it had years of low attendance at times and then recovery. The origin of the Durham Miners Gala is directly linked to the birth of the Durham Miners Association and to its choreographed localization, moving from the individual pit villages through the heart of the city of Durham and onto the race course for rousing political speeches. The Notts gala did not have a single place of performance. As well, the deeply assertive act of Durham miners “taking over” the elite city for that one day does not characterize the Notts gala. What the galas do share is key role played by the banners – the banners are the representation of their communities – once thriving pit villages. It is not surprising that striking Notts miners not only protested in the Old Market Square (the prime political space of Nottingham) in 1984 and that they displayed banners. Importantly, they are hold NUM banners that had been fabricated well before the strike was on the horizon.
source: Banners and Beyond by David Amos and Paul Fillingham
We recommend the 2018 BBC documentary “The Art of Mining”, episode 7 in the series “Civilisations Stories” which explores the banners and other art work of the East Midlands mining culture of which Nottinghamshire is a part.
The bitter legacy of the 1984-85 Miners Strike continues in Nottinghamshire, not just in village life as depicted in BBC’s Sherwood, but transcending the locality. As Joshua Bland, a PhD researcher at the University of Cambridge, has observed, Nottingham retains a reputation of “city of scabs.” This is evident in the denigrating hoots that are hurled, for instance, at the Forest Football Club, when they play in formerly striking areas. It is not uncommon to hear the chant of “you scab bastards” in a football stadium.