The miners’ strike has struck again. It’s the fortieth anniversary of the protracted dispute of 1984-85, which means that you have to be about my age (55) to have had anything approaching an adult understanding of it at the time.
The same old footage, the same old talking points, the same old grievances, excuses and myths regurgitated yet again
As you get older, and time speeds up to a quite ridiculous and frankly unacceptable degree, anniversaries start to whip by like stations on a non-stopping train. It only feels like ten minutes since the thirtieth anniversary of the strikes, and now we have to go through the whole thing all over again. That means more documentaries – we’ve already had The Miners’ Strike: A Frontline Story on the BBC and a three parter on Channel 4, Miners’ Strike 1984: The Battle for Britain. And more articles – with a long read in the Observer by Tim Adams this weekend about cultural depictions of the events. The same old footage, the same old talking points, the same old grievances, excuses and myths regurgitated yet again.
And my God, Adams has a lot of cultural depictions to work from. The miners’ strike is a rich vein beloved of TV and film commissioners – Billy Elliot, Pride, Brassed Off, Sherwood, etc. A friend of mine devised a parlour game where you take it in turns to give a short précis of a film or TV show and append the words ‘set against the emotive backdrop of the miners’ strike’. So for example, ‘In a galaxy far, far away a rebel alliance battles the evil Darth Vader, set against the emotive backdrop of the miners’ strike’ or ‘Holmes and Watson face their most baffling case at Baskerville Hall, set against the emotive backdrop of the miners’ strike.’
Creative types seem to enjoy getting maudlin and angry about this now distant event, though as I recall they were quite maudlin and angry about it at the time.
The middle-class obsession with the miners’ strike
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27.02.2024
The miners’ strike has struck again. It’s the fortieth anniversary of the protracted dispute of 1984-85, which means that you have to be about my age (55) to have had anything approaching an adult understanding of it at the time.
The same old footage, the same old talking points, the same old grievances, excuses and myths regurgitated yet again
As you get older, and time speeds up to a quite ridiculous and frankly unacceptable degree, anniversaries start to whip by like........
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