Voices from the picket line

LUCY ROBINSON enjoys a new history of the 1984-85 Miners' Strike that puts first-hand accounts from those involved front and centre

- LUCY ROBINSON

Backbone of the Nation: Mining Communities and the Great Strike of 1984-85
by Robert Gildea Yale University Press, 496 pages, £25

The year-long 1984 miners' strike divided families, communities and the nation. In his new history of the 'Great Strike', Robert Gildea shows how it also wove people together in new networks and changed lives forever.

Mines and miners have long been markers of political, and national strength. As the 20th century moved to its close they became markers of deindustrialisation, changing post-Cold War power relations and the end of traditional community and class identities. But Gildea shows us how mines are more than a metaphor for the state of the nation. Pits were not just employers: they were communities. They provided community spaces, savings schemes, sports clubs, dance halls and education, such as the NUM training courses that encouraged miners to read Marx and Engels.

Similarly Backbone of the Nation is much more than an account of the strike's causes and milestones - although for anyone not familiar with the details of the strike, Gildea provides an excellent overview. More importantly he weaves together many different stories to show why the Miners' Strike mattered, and why stories about the Miners' Strike matter. This is a book about the power of sharing stories, and how an interview is a gift to future readers or listeners.