The 1984–1985 British miners’ strike was a traumatic moment of class conflict that forty years later has not been forgotten by those who experienced it. The publication of Women and the Miners’ Strike is timely in terms of the commemoration events taking place across the UK in March 2024, including a gathering in Durham City that specifically celebrates the significant role played by women in support of the strike.

Both the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), led by the left-wing Arthur Scargill, and the radical Conservative Government, led by Margaret Thatcher who had appointed the uncompromising managerialist Ian MacGregor as Chairman of the National Coal Board (NCB), were keenly aware of the class politics of the strike. The defeat of a previous Conservative Government by NUM strikes in 1972 and 1974 was a key reference point, informing tactics on both sides. There could be no compromise: the miners sought to prevent pit closures that would decimate their industry and dependent communities, whilst the Government sought to extend the free market and curb the power of trade unions, amongst whom the NUM was a powerful and symbolic presence. Sutcliffe Braithwaite and Thomlinson explain this context for the strike. Situating 1984 in its historical moment serves throughout the text to deepen understanding of the strike's trajectory and implications.

No previous books focus comprehensively on the part played by women in the strike. Although the participation of women activists is recognized and widely admired particularly amongst left-wing commentators, women's presence is mostly documented by reportage, by self-generated accounts, or as a small part in the wider narrative, whilst some unpublished PhDs and chapters in edited texts have considered specific issues relevant to female strike activism. Women and the Miners’ Strike draws on all these textual sources, developing the insights within them. However, it goes further, drawing upon substantial archival research, and 84 oral history interviews undertaken across the British coalfields mainly during 2018–2019. Just as they situate the class politics of the strike in the conditions of the 1970s, so Sutcliffe-Braithwaite and Thomlinson refer to historical social changes that impacted upon women from the 1960s onwards. Crucially, they indicate that the idea of partnership in marriage took on particular connotations in the context of the absolute sexual division of labor within mining life, informing the decision of many women to support their men whether the choice was to strike or otherwise.

The popular focus upon women as strike activists is partly a consequence of the partisan politics of the authors concerned narrowing the definition of support to political activism, and foreclosing the possibility of interviewing women who were involved with strike-breakers. Whilst acknowledging their sympathy with the aims of the strike, Sutcliffe-Braithwaite and Thomlinson carry no personal–political baggage in relation to mining. This enabled them to solicit interviews from women not usually included in strike histories. As well as activists, their sample includes women supporters who were not active in groups, kitchens, demonstrations, picketing, or any of the public manifestations of the struggle.

The result of the broad and non-judgmental historical perspective adopted by Sutcliffe-Braithwaite and Thomlinson is a comprehensive discussion in which the strike is shown to have had a much wider impact than is normally acknowledged. Not limiting the study to activism brings into the frame information that might not otherwise be considered. For example, the impact upon Margaret Thatcher of the arguments of three women active against the strike is shown to have been relevant in informing the decision to cease negotiations with the NUM, thus removing hope of a settlement and demoralizing striking miners. This was a moment too when gendered personal–political processes could be seen to be operating against as well as for the strike.

The interviews provide rich material through which the experience and, indeed, the pain of the strike is brought to life. The women’s stories bring into full view the tension between the increasing physical desperation of striking families as the year wore on, and the imperative of the “moral economy” demanding absolute loyalty to the union that had sustained coalfield communities in the past. The commitment to mining identities and a collective social life that the strike was attempting to protect in the long term, was being systematically destroyed the longer the strike lasted. Material need tipped increasing numbers of miners towards a strike, breaking the moral economy and creating psychological stresses that have never been resolved. The struggle was private and relational as much as it was industrial and political. Because Women and the Miners’ Strike is female-centered, it covers more thoroughly the impact of the strike on personal feelings, family relations, and social networks. The health of mining community, which the strike was attempting to preserve as dependent upon jobs, moves into central frame here, and by extending the narrative to the years after the strike, Sutcliffe-Braithwaite and Thomlinson show clearly how much was lost in the coalfields after the strike was defeated.

The interview material directly communicates the impact of the strike on those involved, but it is not used naively. Sutcliff-Braithwaite and Thomlinson ground the oral history firmly within excellent textual and documentary historical research. The strike itself is narrated chronologically through its key moments, and because it is contextualized within a longer history, both before and after, the reader is left with a clear understanding of its meaning and its ramifications. Inevitably, there are some omissions. Some areas of concern particular to those directly affected by the strike are not afforded high priority in the discussion, including the manipulation of the media, the mass deployment of police, and the use and misuse of law. However, for anyone wishing to gain an understanding of the meaning of the strike for women in the coalfields, this thoroughly researched and well-written text is a welcome addition to the literature.