25 Years Ago Today - The Miner’s Strike

March 5, 2009 | Filed Under Photography | 1 Comment 

Hard to believe that it’s 25 years today since the start of what became known as the “Miner’s Strike” in 1984.  Enough time for someone born during that time to have grown up into a completely different world from the one we knew then.

1984 was already writ large, thanks to Orwell’s book of the same name and in some parts of the country it seemed as if the book was coming true. Horse charges by heavily armoured police against strikers in t-shirts and Thatcher branded the Miners’ union as “The Enemy Within” (she had previously referred to the Argentine regime as the “Enemy Without”) - effectively declaring war on the trade union movement.

So perhaps it’s worth a look at some of the photographs of Don McPhee who worked at the Guardian and who created some iconic images of that time. Great images.