Catalogue Number
NMLH.2002.6
Object Name
photograph
Title
Lesbians And Gays Support The Miners 1984-1985
Place
London, Dulais, Neath, Wales, UK
People
Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), National Mineworkers Union (NUM), Lesbians Against Pit Closures (LAPC), Mark Ashton, Nigel Young, Mike Jackson
Events
1984-85 Miners' Strike
Date
1984-1985
Description
A black fitted suitcase containing a portable photographic exhibition of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) movement that was active during the 1984-1985 miners strike. There are 15 main photographs with accompanying text, 11 colour photographs with text, 2 text panels, and one graph. The photos show the campaign work, community events, and solidarity actions that LGSM took part in during the strike.
Lesbians and Gays Support The Miners (LGSM) was a solidarity campaign between left wing LGBTQ+ activists and mining communities on strike during the 1984-85 Miners' Strike. The founding branch of LGSM was based in London, and twinned with a mining community in Dulais, South Wales, co-founded by two activists originally from Greater Manchester - Mark Asthon, who was born in Oldham and Mike Jackson, from Accrington. As word of LGSM's successful fundraising grew, other autonomous branches were founded around the UK and Ireland. Their fundraising during the strike, including the famed 'Pits and Perverts' fundraising night held in December 1984 at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, was used to sustain the striking miners in Dulais during the strike - feeding, clothing and providing other necessities for the community. After the strike was called off, LGSM created this exhibition, documenting their activities during the strike. It was originally shown at London Gay Pride 1985, and then sent
around the UK to be displayed at the request of community groups, local councils and union branches. The money raised by the exhibition went towards legal fees for miners who had been arrested or jailed for actions during the strike.
LGSM's acts of solidarity, raising tens of thousands of pounds for the striking miners and their families, and visiting their twinned mining community to build bonds of friendship, encouraged mining communities to show solidarity with LGBTQ+ people in return. At the Pits and Perverts night, miner Dai Donovan made a statement promising that miners would remember the generosity of LGBTQ+ communities, and respond by fighting in solidarity for LGBTQ+ rights. Hundreds of miners marched with 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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