Catalogue Number
NMLH.1992.128.1
Object Name
Banner
Title
'Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners'
Place
London, Dulais, Wales
People
Mark Ashton, Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher
Events
1984-85 Miners' Strike
Date
1984-1985
Description
A banner reading 'Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners' in red, black, and yellow. The O of 'Support' is a peace symbol. The back of the banner features a hand drawn caricature of Margaret Thatcher opposite a policeman, next to which the words "When the Union's inspiration through the workers blood shall run, there can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun. For what force on Earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one? But the union makes us strong!"
The Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) banner is one of PHM's most recognisable treasures. Known to the world through the 2014 film, Pride, LGSM was a solidarity campaign between left wing LGBTQ+ activists and the mining community in Dulais, South Wales during the 1984-85 Miners' Strike. The banner was designed by Mark Ashton, and the reverse features hand drawn cartoons by Ashton hand drawings of Margaret Thatcher and a police officer surrounding the first verse of the song 'Solidarity Forever'.
LGSM shows the importance of cross community solidarity - people were surprised the LGBTQ+ community would care about miners, as mining communities were perceived as universally homophobic. But LGSM members thought that the vilification the government and the press were aiming at the striking miners had the same intention the vilification of LGBTQ+ people - to divide and conquer. LGSM's acts of solidarity, raising £22,500 for the striking families in Dulais, and visiting the community to build bonds of friendship, encouraged mining communities to show solidarity with LGBTQ+ people in return. Hundreds of miners marched with their own union banners behind the LGSM banner leading Gay Pride in London in 1985, and following the strike, the National Union of Mineworkers began to successfully advocate for LGBT+ rights in the Labour Party.
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