The festive season is here now but 40 years ago, many in Northumberland faced a particularly bleak Christmas. In 1984, thousands of workers in the area’s mines were in their ninth month of the bitter Miners’ Strike in a desperate bid to prevent the closure of pits across the country. The National Union of Miners (NUM) had 5,000 members in Northumberland, with just over half voting to strike.
Months without wages meant it was a time of hardship for many. However, Northumberland county councillor Brian Gallacher, who worked in the industry at the time and had walked out on strike, said the community spirit shone through.
“The community looked after each other”
Coun Gallacher, who represents Ashington’s Haydon ward, said:
“The community rallied through. The mining areas around where I lived – Ashington, Newbiggin, Lynemouth and various others – had strong communities around the collieries.
“People have to understand that Christmas was nine months after the strike was announced, and it had taken its toll on the miners that were on strike. They were sad times.
“Christmas wasn’t hopeful. It was full of uncertainty. After nine months, all savings had probably gone on rents and mortgages. I know mine was on hold – and that money had to be paid back.
“These were proud miners not working. We didn’t know when it was going to finish.
“Most people at the time had open fires which were their only source of heat. People were burning anything that would go on the fire.
“I remember a lot of people had allotments and people shared their produce with strikers. People cared for people that lived in Ashington.
“It made strong families even stronger. Christmas itself was limited, there weren’t many presents for the kids – but I can remember communities all around south east Northumberland having a collection for Christmas presents for the kids of the miners.
“It woke everybody up to the fact that other people were struggling as well. The community where I lived looked after each other.
“To quote Charles Dickens, ‘it was the best of times, it was the worst of times’.”
Support from other workers in another country
Blyth and Ashington MP Ian Lavery was also on strike at Christmas 1984, having started work at Lynemouth colliery in January 1980. He too remembered the strength of community at the time – although some of that came from slightly further afield than south east Northumberland.
Lavery said: “I remember the Christmas of 1984 vividly, I still lived at home in Garden City Villas in Ashington with my mam and dad with three of my four brothers.
“With five of us out on strike, there was a lot of worry in the household and in the community as to what Christmas would look like. But the solidarity from across the country and internationally meant it was a festive period never to be forgotten.
“Every mining family had a chicken or turkey on the table courtesy of the CGT Union in France and every miner’s child got a present too. Truckload after truckload of Christmas joy courtesy of workers in a different country who we had never met.
“It was truly the time when as an individual I understood the real meaning of solidarity. To receive gifts from workers thousands of miles away, many less well off than ourselves, was a lesson well learned. Magnificent!”
In March 1985, the strike was called off in a victory for Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government. The coal industry, by then much-reduced, was privatised in 1994. Ellington Colliery, Northumberland’s last coal mine and the last deep coal mine in the North East of England, shut down in 2005.
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