Catalogue Number
NMLH.2025.34.6
Object Name
Newspaper
Title
THE MINER
People
NUM
Events
Miners' Strike 1984-1985
Date
1984
Description
Special Issue of The Miner Newspaper, the Journal of the National Union of Mineworkers, August 31 1984. A 'STOP PRESS' at the top of the front page notes that Margaret Thatcher had cancelled a tour of the Far East due to the pits and docks crisis. This section also notes that incorrect media reports have been increased as the TUC approaches.
Headline on the front page reads "STAND UP AND BE COUNTED!". Internal articles examine how the effects of the strike are hitting businessmen, how mine investors are providing money for scabs, and issues a warning relating to the actions of the police. The middle pages show photographs from pits and pickets, with a list of the pits on strike. The back page covers 'Strike Facts'
The 1984-85 Miners' Strike was called after the government announced plans to close 20 pits, at a cost of twenty thousand miners jobs, which the miners accurately saw as the beginning of the closure of all the pits in the UK. The strike lasted for over a year before ending unsuccessfully in March 1985. While letters from the NCB to strikers claimed that it was "absolutely untrue" that the government planned to ultimately close 85 pits, the NUM's speculation was correct. A second round of closures was announced in 1992 closing almost all the mines in the UK, leaving former pit towns with extremely high rates of unemployment and deprivation that last to this day.
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