In March 1984, the Conservative government announced the closure of twenty coal mines with a loss of 20,000 jobs. In response, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) announced a strike which ultimately lasted a year and, at its peak, involved 142,000 workers. The strike was one of the most bitter trade disputes in British history, with Margaret Thatcher labelling the striking miners ‘the enemy within’. As the NUM had failed to hold a national ballot the strike was declared illegal; the government seized the union’s funds, and striking members were ineligible for benefits. This meant that support from outside the union was vital.
One crucial support group was an organisation called Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM). Over the course of the strike they raised approximately £20,000 to support the miners, and their work led to an unlikely alliance between the two communities. Although LGSM became a legend within the LGBTQ+ community, for many years their work was largely forgotten. However, the release of the film Pride in 2014 has sparked a wider interest in the movement and will mean that the story will live on in public memory.
LGSM was founded by Mark Ashton and Mike Jackson. Ashton was a prominent young communist, who had first met Jackson when they were both volunteers for the counselling and advice service, Switchboard. In 1984, they took collecting buckets for the miners to Pride and raised £150. Soon afterwards, they officially established Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. Their inaugural meeting was held at Ashton’s house and attended by eleven people. Jackson later explained why they decided to form the organisation, stating that he was frustrated at having to keep his sexuality and his political activism separate: ‘Let’s show the miners we support them which we do anyway, but let’s do it as lesbians and gays.’ The first members were also inspired by the Labour MP, Tony Benn. Benn had given an interview with Gay News shortly after the beginning of the strike, in which he drew parallels between the police treatment of both gay people and the miners on the picket lines.
Although the London group was the largest, branches of LGSM were also established in Huddersfield, York, Leicester, Southampton, Bournemouth, Brighton, Nottingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dublin, Cork, Cardiff, and Swansea. The groups were twinned with mining communities to which they would directly donate the money. The London group was twinned with miners’ support groups in South Wales: Neath, Swansea, and Dulais. They estimated that they paid a quarter of Dulais’ bills during the strike.
In October 1984, the members of the London branch of LGSM were invited to Dulais to meet the community. Initially, there was some trepidation on both sides; one miner supporter admitted that they were expecting ‘a bunch of weirdos’. However, on the whole, the members of LGSM found that they received a warm welcome. One member, Johnny Orr, later recalled that many of the miners were more shocked that some of them were vegetarian. Miners from Abercynon in South Wales travelled to meet the Southampton members of LGSM; a report afterwards stated that the visit had challenged the miners’ prejudices, as ‘they know we are just ordinary people, and people who support their struggle.’
Both sides were able to unite over their common enemies of the police, the government, and the press. One particular enemy of both groups was The Sun newspaper, which had declared that the miners were ‘the scum of the earth’. As one member of LGSM pointed out, ‘… mining families know the Sun lies, they know that the TV is a lie machine, they have experienced how it has been used against them as a propaganda agent of the government.’
When The Sun derided the alliance between the miners and LGSM as ‘a group of perverts supporting the pits’, LGSM responded by holding a fundraising ball entitled ‘Pits and Perverts’ at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, which raised £5,650. At the event, Dai Donovan, a miner from South Wales, gave a speech which highlighted the significance of LGSM for both communities: ‘You have worn our badge “Coal Not Dole” and you know what harassment means, as we do. Now we will pin your badge on us, we will support you.’
Ultimately, the strike was unsuccessful, ending in defeat in March 1985. It was, however, to have a lasting legacy. Dai Donovan and the other members of the NUM were true to their word. In 1985, NUM delegates lobbied delegates at the TUC and Labour conferences to adopt policies supporting lesbian and gay rights. In a further display of solidarity in June 1985, NUM members and their band led the procession at the Gay Pride march in London. The support of the miners was described by Mike Jackson as standing out ‘like granite pillars of our mutual trust, solidarity, and hope for the future.’
The work of LGSM was also significant for the bonds of comradeship they between both groups, which was demonstrated by one woman from a mining community, who asserted: ‘We are your friends now, and you are our friends and you have changed our world.’
By Michaela Jones, PhD researcher and Citizens Project intern at Royal Holloway, University of London
Header image: A picket of East Neasden Power Station attended by LGSM members in early 1985 with the LGSM banner. Image reproduced with the kind permission of LGSM2014.
Sources:
Daryl Leeworthy, ‘For Our Common Cause: Sexuality and Left Politics in South Wales, 1967-1985,’ Contemporary British History 30:2 (2016): 260-280.
Diarmaid Kelliher, ‘Solidarity and Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners 1984-5,’ History Workshop Journal 77:1 (2014): 240-262.
Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, www.lgsm.org.
Lucy Robinson, Gay Men and the Left in Post-War Britain: How the Personal Got Political (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007).
