Find out more about the Miners' Strike, including people's experiences in areas of the country linked to the Cambridge Miners' Support Group.
Doreen Massey and Hilary Wainwright, Beyond the Coalfields: The Work of the Miners’ Support Groups, in Huw Beynon (ed.) Digging Deeper for the Miners: Issues in the Miners’ Strike (London: Verso, 1986), pp149-68. This mentions Cambridge.
Lynn Beaton, Shifting Horizons (London: Canary Press, 1985). This contains a vivid description of the Blidworth miners’ ‘day out’ at Strawberry Fair.
Vivien Bailey, Thirty Years On: The 1984/5 Miners’ Strike and the St Albans Nottinghamshire (NUM) Miners’ Support Group (St Albans, 2014). St Albans supported the villages of Newstead and Annesley. This booklet was privately produced by a local activist.
John Lowe, If Spirit Alone Won Battles (Nottingham: Wharncliffe Books, Barnsley, 2011). John Lowe was from the Clipstone Colliery.
W. John Morgan and Ken Coates, Nottinghamshire Coalfield and the British Miners’ Strike 1984-5 (Nottingham: University of Nottingham Adult Education Department, 1991).
Harry Paterson. Look Back in Anger: The Miners' Strike in Nottinghamshire 30 Years On (Nottingham: Five Leaves Press, 2014).
Keith Stanley. Nottingham Miners Do Strike! (Nottingham, c.2009). The author was a union representative in Annesley in 1984 and later became a Vice President of the NUM.
Joan Witham (ed.). Hearts and Minds: The Story of the Women of Nottinghamshire in the Miners’ Strike, 1984-1985 (London: Canary Press, 1985). Witham, a retired further education lecturer, was Secretary of the Newark Miners’ Support Group and knew women in the Blidworth, Bilsthorpe and Rufford pits where the Newark miners worked.
Catherine Paton Black, At the Coal Face: My Life as a Miner’s Wife. (London: Headline, 2012). Paton worked in the canteen at the Bevercote colliery in Nottinghamshire and supported the strike.
Norma Dolby, Norma Dolby’s Diary: An Account of the Great Miners' Strike. (London: Verso, 1987). Dolby was a miners’ wife from the Arkwright colliery in Derbyshire.
Jill Miller, You Can’t Kill the Spirit: Women in a Welsh Mining Valley. (London: The Women’s Press Ltd, 1986). Interviews with 12 women who worked with the Abertillery Women’s Support Group during the strike.
Jean Stead, Never the Same Again: Women and the Miners' Strike 1984-5. (London: The Women’s Press, 1987). This has now become a classic. Jean Stead was a Scottish correspondent for The Guardian.
Vicky Seddon (ed.), The Cutting Edge: Women and the Pit Strike. (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1986). An excellent collection of essays by women from all over the country.
Ben Curtis, The South Wales Miners 1964-1985. (Ferryside, Wales: Iconau, 2009).
Hywel Francis, History on our Side: Wales and the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike. (Ferryside, Wales: Iconau, 2009).
Jonathan and Ruth Winterton, Coal, Crisis and Conflict: 1984-85 Miners' Strike in Yorkshire. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989).
Diarmaid Kelliher. 'Solidarity and Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners 1984-5'. History Workshop Journal, March 2014, vol. 7(1).
Mike Foden, Steve Fothergill and Tony Gore, The State of the Coalfields: Economic and Social Conditions in the Former Mining Communities of England, Scotland and Wales. (Sheffield: Sheffield Hallam University, 2014).
Nottinghamshire Ex and Retired Miners Association http://www.nottscoalminingmemories.org.uk
The Battle for Orgreave (dir. Yvette Vanson), 1984 and The Battle for Orgreave – The Sequel (Critical Eye, Channel 4), 1991. This path-breaking documentary set the record straight about the order of events which led to the arrest of miners at the Orgreave coke plant.
The Miners’ Campaign Tapes. These tapes were made by supporters of the miners in the media industry in 1984. They were not screened on television or in cinemas at the time but were shown on college campuses and community halls and are available through Amazon.
Pride (dir. Matthew Warchus), 2014. An acclaimed feature film about the student activist Mark Ashton and gay and lesbian support for striking miners in the Dulais valley in Wales.
Still the Enemy Within (dir. Owen Gowar), 2014. A radical documentary with rank and file miners talking. The makers emphasise that no experts or politicians were involved with this film.