By Elsa van Helfteren

Earlier this week on the 18^th June 2024, the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) delivered a new report to the Home Office and every major party on the events of what has been dubbed the ‘Battle of Orgeave’. Earlier this year Matt Foot, from OTJC, joined the Library, UCU and Unite the Union at our event that marked the 40^th anniversary of the Miners’ Strike, to talk about the campaigns fight for an independent enquiry. I have put together a blog post of the highlights from the evening looking at Sussex’s involvement in the strike!

Much to the surprise of many in the Library Collections Office who talked endlessly about how ‘it seemed like only yesterday’, this year marks the 40^th anniversary of the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike. After we moved on from the distress of events in their youth being taught on History courses at Sussex, we delved deep into the library’s Legacy Collection. We found a lot of interesting material, but what caught our eye in particular was the Brighton Labour Briefing.

Brighton Labour Briefing, a spin off from the national Labour Briefing, was created by local Brighton activists, many of whom were Sussex graduates. It drew our attention to the under-reported role that Brighton had played in the strike and before we knew it, our research into Miners’ Strike and our collection had snowballed into a panel discussion on ‘How Sussex Supported the Miners’, where the very mention of BLB elicited cheers from the 1980s alumni in the audience.

Our panelists comprised of Bryn Griffiths (former UoS Student Union Vice President, writer for Brighton Labour Briefing and co-ordinator of the Brighton Supports the Miners Group); Liz French (leading member of Women Against Pit Closures (WAPC) and wife of imprisoned Kent striking miner Terry French); Terry Harrison (striking Kent Miner); and Mark Organ (railway worker, RMT/ASLEF member and flying picket during the strike).

The evening brought to life these articles from 40 years ago for a room full of 130 attendees, including students past and present, staff, local activists and the general public. Our chair Jill Kirby, from the University of Sussex History department, drew out some amazing stories from the panel. They shared fond memories of the solidarity of Brighton residents who donated whatever food or money they could to sustain the strike, even when they didn’t have much themselves. The food donations were gratefully received by the Kent Mining community despite there being some confusion as to why the Brighton Support Group kept sending bird feed (in classic Brighton fashion it turned out to be lentils).

Liz French also remembered the ‘magnificent’ support of the Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners groups in Brighton. She remembered a conversation she once had when she asked a member of the LGSM where this unlikely solidarity had come from and was met with the humorous answer ‘when police are battering you, they’re leaving us alone.’

Many miners from Kent, where the nearest pits were located, would come down to Brighton to campaign and fundraise, with some even relocating to Brighton for the duration of the strike. Bryn Griffiths remembered and paid tribute to the recently passed Dave Newell who lived with him and other University of Sussex students for almost the full year (see above pictured alongside Bryn fundraising at his 1984 graduation).

Liz French remembered how Brighton became almost a holiday destination for miners during the strike; her then husband and other miners being sent to the Brighton seaside as a form of rest and recreation when pickets had become particularly full-on, and they needed to temporarily keep a low profile from the police. Terry Harrison even speculated whether all the pickets returned to Kent after the strike because they had such a good time in Brighton.

Bryn Griffiths showed us vinyl records of the array of bands that Brighton Supports the Miners invited to play at benefit concerts which included the Test Department, Sarah Jane Morris in Happy Ends, and the most memorable for him, the Red Skins, which attracted a coachload of skinheads from London. Bryn, as a bearded student recollected how he was normally wary of skinheads, but to his surprise he found them cheerily throwing fivers in his miners’ strike donation bucket.

Mark Organ, as a rail worker, played a slightly different role to Bryn during the strike; instead of staying in Brighton he acted as a flying picket for the Hatfield Maine NUM branch (which his ASLEF branch was partnered with). The action and solidarity of Mark and his trade union colleagues was essential as nearly all coal was moved around the country by rail but, as Mark proudly recounted, not one piece of coal was moved in Sussex during the entire duration of the strike. Mark and his trade union comrades were also active pickets at Shoreham Docks where the government were attempting to bring in scab coal from Europe.

Mark also used his privileges as a rail worker to provide picketing miners with free train tickets to get all over the country, eventually it ended up being more efficient to just give them a blank ticket book to fill out themselves. One of the funniest stories of comradery to come out of the event was when Mark told us how he and his trade union colleges stole a photocopier from one of their offices and sent it via train to a mining village overnight. Much to their surprise the manager in their office turned a blind eye saying ‘I don’t know what happened to the photocopier, but if the people who have it need extra equipment, it’s in the cupboard.’

The Miners’ Strike was fundamental to the politicisation of large groups of working-class women. Liz French recalled how before the strike she had never been to London, or even travelled by herself. She remembered being sent by WAPC to London Kings Cross alone for the first time – then before she knew it, she was travelling all over Europe fundraising for the strike.

The mining community’s attitude towards women within the movement slowly shifted over time. Terry Harrison recalled how at first women were not allowed in the backroom of the pit club, something he thought was ironic due to all the talk of progressive anti-imperialist left wing politics that went on in the club. The organising and action of WAPC played a huge role in the longevity of the strike and French found a voice for herself within the WAPC movement, something she has carried with her throughout her life.

The strike played a huge role in the political development for all of the panel. Terry had always felt largely separated from the intellectualised left until the strike, when he felt like those barriers were down and working-class communities of miners were welcomed and were met with on an equal level. Bryn Griffiths, who always put his studies at Sussex second to his politics and community organising, stated how the miners’ strike had been a ‘masterclass in solidarity, a masterclass in organising, a masterclass in left wing politics […]’ – the strike had shaped his politics for the rest of his life.

The talk was brought to a close with a question from a current University of Sussex student who asked for advice for young activists today. The answers she was met with were simple yet powerful; ‘join your union’ and ‘you’ve just got to do it, be active, organised and fight; no one else is going to do it for you.’

For anyone interested in finding out more about our Miners’ Strike collections please contact the team at library.collections@sussex.ac.uk