STRIKE
£15.00
by Wimbush, Sarah | Postwar period, 1945 to c 2000
Published 15/01/2024 by Stairwell Books in the United Kingdom
Paperback | 102 pages, 42 assorted photographs
In stock
Description
It Is March 1984 and the miners’ strike has just started. By exploring both famous and previously unseen photographs through the lens of poetry, STRIKE captures the turbulence of one of the longest industrial disputes in British history, and the spirit of a marginalised community on the verge of profound change.
Shortlisted for the Forward Prize 2024
See the video: Miners’ Strike 1984-85 poetry-film, The Flat Cap by Sarah Wimbush
Yorkshire Times Poem of the Week
Musical setting of This is the BBC by Mike Jenkinson
In STRIKE we journey from the North East which inspires Billy Elliot, to Wivenhoe Docks where flying pickets attempt to stop coal imports, to children riddling coal on spoil tips in Wales. We come face to face with politicised ‘Women Against Pit Closures’ and riot police brutality, and we discover what motivates Scargill while Thatcher’s tactics are laid bare in the Ridley Plan. The BBC’s reversed news footage of the Battle of Orgreave illustrates how the media manipulates coverage and the infamous ballot box stands silent. But there are moments of humanity: an impromptu game of football between Nottinghamshire police and strikers, the Pits and Perverts concert organised by ‘Lesbians and Gays Support The Miners’, and a Scottish policeman giving a picket the kiss of life. By 1985, these poems ache with strike-breakers, impacted children, and tragic deaths, but even in this most desperate of class struggles there are still flashes of humour and hope.
