During the Miners’ Strike of 1984-1985, Hackney residents, organisations and the council united to support striking workers in their fight to preserve jobs – as well as protecting miner’s families from hardship.
Introduction
In March 1984, the National Coal Board (NCB) announced the mass closure of coal mines, an action that would make tens of thousands of miners unemployed and devastate the communities which relied on them. As many as 142,000 miners across the country took part in an 11 month strike in an effort to preserve jobs, at a time when the Thatcher-led Conservative government was seeking to reduce the political power of trade unions.
In Hackney, both the council and residents joined the miners in their fight to preserve jobs, particularly through supporting the mining communities in the region of Gwent, South Wales. Hackney Council provided an office at Hackney Town Hall for three striking miners from the Oakdale Colliery. For months they used this office as a permanent base to organise campaigning and collecting food and money for those affected by the strikes. Later a space at the council’s housing office in Stoke Newington was provided for five miners from Nottingham for their campaign.
In July 1984, the Hackney Trades Union Council brought together a wide variety of local organisations and individuals to launch the Miners Support Committee Hackney. This met fortnightly in Hackney Town Hall, and involved miners from South Wales, Nottingham and Kent.
“We had been told in the press that the GLC funded ‘extremist organisations’ in London. When we got here we found that these extremist organisations were places like Chats Palace and Centerprise. Well, if these are extremist, then we want more of them, in Hackney throughout London and in the rest of the country. We’d also been told that people in London were cold and unfriendly. We found that in fact people in Hackney were as warm and compassionate as people in Wales…“
Colin Tapper, Oakdale miner based at Hackney Town Hall 1984-85.
Food Convoys
Striking without pay meant mining families faced serious hardship. Speaking in June 1984, one member of the Oakdale Women’s Support Group described: “Various days I’ve got no bread. I make sure Billy, Martin and Paul have got it, but I go without”.
Recalling the unsuccessful miners’ strike of 1926, Hackney Council declared: “We must ensure that they aren’t starved back to work in the way they were in 1926. Regular food parcels are vital”. Tins, non-perishable foodstuffs and essentials such as nappies were collected at Hackney Town Hall, and collection buckets went around the borough raising money towards the Gwent Food Fund.
In June 1984, the first lorry of food parcels from Hackney people for striking families travelled to Islwyn, Gwent. By October that year, food worth £15,000 had been donated.
Over the length of the strike a total of ten convoys of food were sent; eight to South Wales, one to Staffordshire and one to Nottingham.
“Without this support from the people of Hackney we could not have kept our families from starving.
Letter from South Wales National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), published in the Hackney Herald, October 1984.
From the bottom of my heart I thank you very much for the support you have already given us and I hope you will keep it up.“
Solidarity and Support
At a time when Hackney was arguably one of the most economically deprived areas in the country, with 1 in 5 people unemployed, residents contributed £110,000 (the equivalent of over £342,000 in 2025) to support miners and their families.
Venues such as Chats Palace, Rio Cinema, the Wally Foster Centre and Centerprise bookshop hosted fundraising events. The hit band Bronski Beat performed at a benefit concert at Stoke Newington Town Hall. Dalston based printing co-operative Trojan Print produced badges for miners’ pickets in Yorkshire free of charge and made fundraising badges for the Kent branch of National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
Hackney Council hosted a display of political cartoons by local artist Tony Hall at Hackney Town Hall to raise money for the miners, and declared the intention to twin the borough with mining communities in Gwent. Although never officially formalised by the Twinning Committee, the relationship was recognised to the extent that a Council Leisure Services report in July 1984 stated “in many ways, Gwent can now be considered twinned with Hackney”.
The miners’ cause attracted widespread support across local union activists. On a Day of Action on 27 June 1984, amongst the 50,000 marching through London in solidarity with the miners were members of Hackney NALGO, Market Community Nursery Hackney, Hackney Teachers Association, William Patten Infants School, the Hackney Joint Shop Stewards’ Committee (JSSC) as well as the Save Hackney Campaign.
“The miners dispute is a working class struggle and we should support them. If one of the largest unions can be victimised in this way, what chance do the others have?
I want people to know that when I met the miners’ families they were so grateful that in these hard times people in London think of them and are so generous with their donations”
Deputy Mayor of Hackney Betty Shanks, speaking in 1984.
Supporting the Miners’ Children
In August 1984, around 65 children of striking miners’ families from Oakdale and Tredegar, Gwent, were given a week’s summer holiday in Hackney and Islington. Co-ordinated by the Hackney Play Association, children were hosted by local families and playschemes. Planned events included a sight-seeing tour of London, a party and a picnic. A special fund of around £1000 was set up to meet the costs of the trip.
Deputy Mayor of Hackney Betty Shanks, whose husband came from a mining family, and who had accompanied the first convoy to Gwent, arranged a Christmas appeal that delivered 175 gifts to miners’ children in Oakdale.
A group of miners’ children from Nottingham also joined a Christmas fair held at Hackney Town Hall Assembly Room, to collect ‘hundreds’ of donated presents stacked under the Christmas tree for them and their peers back home.
“We must put our personal welfare last and the welfare of our children first. Your support and help is deeply appreciated and will not be forgotten.“
Mrs J. Searchfield, Tredegar Women’s Support Group, in a thank you letter following the children’s summer holiday in east London, 1984.
Legacies
On 3 March 1985, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) voted to end the strike and the miners returned to work. Mine closures continued, with long lasting impacts of unemployment within their communities.
The defeat of the miners was followed by failed notable industrial actions at bed factory Silentnight and the Wapping Dispute with printworkers. These are often viewed as a significant moment in the decline in the political powers of trade unions within the UK.
“As far as the miners were concerned it was keeping their jobs and the communities that lived on them. As far as the Conservatives were concerned it was an exemplary crushing of the trade unions...The defeat of these unions was to make a real heavy duty political point, and they won! The trade union movement is a shadow of what it was.“
Mary Pimm and Nik Wood, Hackney based union activists, speaking in 2024.
For many women from communities like Oakdale, their involvement in the strike represented their first experiences of major political campaigning. From a husband cooking dinner for his children for the first time, to discussions of who belongs on a picket line, it disrupted existing gendered expectations.
After the miners’ strike ended, the Hackney Miners Support Committee pledged to continue their solidarity work, campaigning for imprisoned and sacked miners, and fundraising to relieve poverty in mining communities. The Committee remained active into the 1990s.
“When people would come to us from Kent and other NUM areas, they said that Hackney Miners Support Committee was the best in the country. It was a model. That unity can only be good for the people of Hackney…
The links between Hackney and Oakdale will never be forgotten.”
Colin Tapper, Oakdale miner based at Hackney Town Hall 1984-85.
