Pies and essays: women writing through the British 1984–1985 coal miners' strike

Abstract

During the 1984–1985 British miners' strike and in its immediate aftermath, women activists produced a series of publications involving creative writing, which sought to communicate the strike from their own perspective. The production and sale of publications were a practical activity in support of the strike and in defence of community. We argue that insofar as writing was also a means whereby the women who worked to make sense of themselves in an emergent situation for which there was no precedent, an analysis of such writing offers opportunities for a broader understanding of the strike. Writing enabled the women to affirm their class-based political loyalties while expressing the complexities and contradictions of gender relationships and roles. Writing as a reflexive act contributed to a clarification of those aspects of female lives which they valued, facilitated an expression of their emotional response to their experience of activism and enabled them to articulate a moral-political position within which they worked with ambiguity and contradiction. This article suggests that cultural texts of this type in themselves can only be properly understood in the context of structural and historical relations of power and that the context and conditions of production of writing are particularly pertinent to this process.

Durante la huelga de los mineros británicos en 1984–1985 e inmediatamente después de esta, mujeres activistas produjeron una serie de publicaciones que incluían escritos creativos que intentaban comunicar la huelga desde su propia perspectiva. La producción y venta de publicaciones era una actividad práctica para apoyar la huelga y en defensa de la comunidad. Sostenemos que en la medida en que la escritura fue también un medio a través del cual las mujeres trabajaron para encontrar un sentido de sí mismas en una situación emergente para la cual no había precedentes, un análisis de estos escritos ofrece oportunidades para una comprensión más amplia de la huelga. La escritura permitió a las mujeres afirmar sus lealtades políticas de clase al mismo tiempo que expresar las complejidades y contradicciones de las relaciones y roles de género. La escritura como acto reflexivo contribuyó a la aclaración de aquellos aspectos de las vidas de las mujeres que ellas valoraban, facilitó una expresión de su respuesta emocional a la experiencia del activismo, y les permitió articular una posición político-moral dentro de la cual ellas trabajaron con ambigüedad y contradicción. Este artículo sugiere que los textos culturales de este tipo en sí mismos solo pueden ser comprendidos en el contexto de relaciones estructurales e históricas de poder y que el contexto y las condiciones de la producción de la escritura son particularmente pertinentes a este proceso.

Keywords:

• miners' strike
• women
• activism
• writing
• publications

Keywords:

• huelga de mineros
• mujeres
• activismo
• escritura
• publicaciones

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to those who published their creative writing about their experience of the British miners' strike of 1984/1985. Our thanks go to the organisers of the conference, Digging the Seam: Cultural Reflections and the Consequences of the 1984/1985 Miners' Strike (Leeds University, March 2010), who provided us with an early platform for our ideas. Finally, we are indebted to the reviewers of Gender, Place and Culture for their very valuable comments on the final drafts of this article.

Notes

1. This extract is quoted in: Tony Harrison, ‘V’ 1985 Bloodaxe Books; and used by Shaw (2007), and also by Kirk (1999).

2. The interviews were mainly undertaken by Monica Shaw and Carol Stephenson.

3. Many of the poems are untitled. Titles are included where they exist.