About the Cambridge and the Miners' Strike project

Cambridge and the Miners' Strike is a local study intended to shift attention from the Thatcher/Scargill polarities in which the miners’ strike of 1984 is usually discussed, by concentrating upon its impact on those whose lives were directly affected.

It gives a voice to those who participated in the strike and the relief effort organised by their supporters and allows them to share their experiences with others who know little or nothing about the strike and its effects upon ordinary people.

But there aren’t any coal mines in Cambridge...

The project explores the connections established between residents of the city of Cambridge and the striking miners and their families. It looks at the personal friendships that were formed as a consequence of the strike, some of which have lasted until this day.

A network of support groups

Cambridge was one of dozens of support groups across the UK. Its ‘twinning’ with Blidworth and Rainworth in Nottinghamshire reflected the National Union of Miners (NUM) policy of linking mining communities to their supporters elsewhere. Other 'twinnings' included Ollerton with Norwich, Welbeck with Harlow, and Newstead with St Albans.

Miners from Maerdy and Abertillery, collecting for the Gwent Food Fund, were a familiar presence outside King’s College in Cambridge.

In addition collections were organised in council offices, trade union branches, and sections of the Labour Party for Selby in Yorkshire. Bread-and-cheese lunches and collections of good secondhand clothes were organised to raise money for women’s groups in Derbyshire.

In 1984 the Oxford Miners’ Support Group was able to raise £111,000 for miners and their families in cash and food. They received regular donations from 92 trade union organisations in Oxfordshire and 45 Labour Party organisations, drawing much of their support from trade unionists in Oxford’s industrial hinterland and the car works in Cowley, in particular.

In contrast, Cambridge, which was a fraction of its present size, still resembled a Fenland market town, and had little in the way of heavy industry. However, its lively and well-organised miners’ support group proved remarkably successful in bringing together trade unions, the student population, community groups, political parties, colleges, church groups and academics in a series of imaginative initiatives in aid of the coal fields. The group raised well in excess of £36,000 alongside groceries, clothing, children’s toys, items for babies, household equipment, toiletries, medicines and other necessities.

Who are these web pages for?

We hope that these web pages, including the oral histories, will interest all who want to learn about a fascinating episode in the history of modern Cambridge and that those familiar with the city may come to see it in a new way.

We want the oral histories to be a resource for anyone interested in the history of late twentieth-century Britain, especially students at ARU and other universities, the majority of whom were not born at the time of the strike.

The material available here complements a third year BA (Hons) History module on the era of Thatcher and Blair. It supports undergraduate students of history to position the strike in its full cultural and historical context, encouraging them to ask searching questions about the 1980s and to engage with published academic work on the strike written from a variety of differing critical perspectives.