Thread by @ncb1947

Wonderful to see so many familiar faces gathering for our end of project event!

'On Behalf of the People': Work, Community and Class in the British Coal Industry

Douglas Nicholls, general secretary of our project partner @GFTU1, begins our event with a reminder of how important education and trade union history is to the labour movement.

Now @ProfGildart: this project has tried to include a broader range of voices. Today we have lots of people - from ex-coal miners to professors - to reflect the diverse interest in coal mining history.

Our researchers: @ProfPerchard, @ProfGildart, @DrBCCurtis will be talking about their research into the key localities. Unfortunately @GraceinWolves can't be here but her work is also forming part of the presentations today.

There have been so many people that have helped the project along, says @ProfPerchard. We are very much looking forward to hearing from them during our event. 96 transcriptions of our OH interviews with people from our 8 colliery sites will be made available.

We have all available copies of Coal News digitised now, as well as The Miner, which will be available soon. The legacy of this project will be greater accessibility of sources for everyone, particularly people from coal mining communities.

A particular highlight of this project was being able to connect with Japanese scholars working on coal-mining. Striking points of connection between the countries uncovered very familiar experiences despite the geographical distance.

The beginning of the project investigated the creation of the National Coal Board, and what nationalisation meant for coal mining communities. Signs saying 'on behalf of the people' marked the beginning of that process. What is striking is how quickly those physical markers

disappeared. Now it can often be difficult to spot where former collieries were, as the sites have been built over or simply neglected. This is reflected in the recent attempts at rewriting history, @ProfPerchard. It is very easy to cover over the past.

The culture of trade unionism has gone through many shifts, with effects from militancy vs moderation, or generational differences, or changing ideologies, says @ProfGildart. This project has tried to revamp the research process to include archives but also personal experiences,

attention on local community efforts at commemorations, or local history groups. This has led to new and sometimes surprising opinions, memories or insights. We needed a broader perspective on mining history to reflect the broader experience of not just coal miners but also their

communities and families. Archives can still surprise though - @ProfGildart got payslips and diaries from family members that worked in the mines. A diary was strangely devoid of politics, but in fact much richer. It was his experience of his daily life, worries, hopes and

what on the surface is the 'ordinary', but to historians seeking to know about the everyday lives of miners, it is absolutely extraordinary.

Some findings: The spectre of 84/5 hangs over coal mining communities and has been difficult for the researchers to navigate. OH has helped uncover marginalised voices. Implications of nationalisation for communities was profound. Lots of outputs planned for the future!

Prof David Howell is now talking about how trade union officials and became labour leaders. By around 1914 most miners leaders accepted that if they wanted a political career it probably had to be through the Labour party. However, their pathways were complex. Often pragmatism

and a sense of playing by the rules made people that were ideologically opposed to the Labour party work closely with them, even joining the 1924 cabinet (eg Walsh).

Howell emphasies that rules and procedures are absolutely fundamental (far more than important than questions of ideology) in who is chosen as candidate in mining communities. However, emotions are a crucial driving force behind the whole Labour movement, which he says is

difficult to find in older records. It is very interesting to see that those emotions, experiences and feelings have been focused on (because of the sources) in our project.

Next up, Paul Darlow from the NUM archive in Barnsley (Centre of the Universe). The archive has been scoped, but not catalogued, and is a vast untapped source. Paul recently found information on how the NUM identified members who had signed up to the National Front.

In response, mining officials went and spoke to them and educated them on why fascism was wrong, and was able to pull them away from that kind of radicalisation. The miners hall itself is beautiful and a wonderful place to work!

However, the archive is in desperate need of cataloguing. It hasn't been kept in good conditions because funding has been hard to find. But the archive is so important and we must preserve it.

We are currently waiting for Wellcome funding - which has been made available - so that Warwick University can house the records in better and more suitable conditions for future historians. (Although it's sad to see they won't be kept in Barnsley :()

Our next session begins with the Working Class Women in British Coalfields @CoalfieldWomen project by Dr Natalie Thomlinson @sadhistorygeek and Dr Florence Sutcliffe Braithwaite.

There was a tendency from women involved in the 84/5 strike to not identify as feminists. Instead they viewed their activism in terms of their work supporting their community, says Dr Sutcliffe Braithwaite. In fact, feminism was often viewed very badly.

Of the women that were directly involved in the support movement of the 84/5 strike, many described themselves as 'non-political', says @sadhistorygeek, even when they were directly involved in their local political branches. There was a scepticism of politics amongst women.

Although some politicisation did exist, only a minority of women involved in the strike claimed the label of 'activist'. Fascinating to hear more about how women thought of their own roles within the strike and community. Lots more info here: ucl.ac.uk/history/resear…

Now we have Norma Gregory from the Black Miners Research Project blackcoalminers.com. Interest in the story of black miners in Britain started with wanting to know more about her own family history. Her family, notably her father, were former Nottingham coal miners.

Norma Gregory was told by historians that there were no black miners, so she set out to collect photographs and to conduct interviews (70 so far) to prove their existence and stop their history being erased. Gregory has been smashing myths - a photo of a black miner *owner* from

1910 establishes the central role that people of colour could and did take in coal mining history.

Gregory now has long lists of collieries that had black miners, and has an eye on creating resources for every one who wants to know more about black mining heritage.

Our final session today is with Paul Hardman (Lancashire NUM), Mike MacDonald (Prospect) and poet Rab Wilson (Scotland NUM). Paul talks of the respect that new, younger miners had for older miners. There was also strong adherence to health and safety - they knew not doing so

could be disastrous. There was a change in the air after Thatcher came in - the usual camaraderie was replaced with concern over profitability in the mine. The antagonism between people that worked during the strike and the strikers endures; emotions are still high.

Now Mike Macdonald talks about his experience working with colliery management. The process of redundancy negotiations was a difficult and dark time, but he feels that there was a total neglect of the communities and the effect redundancies were having.

Our final speaker is Rab Wilson, ex-miner and poet. He has found it deeply moving to see the photos on our project banners, and is now reading us sonnets he wrote about the 84/5 strike.

Final comments by Prof Howell contextualising the questions around closing the coal mines within wider deindustrialisation and overriding questions of power. It was important, politically, to the Tory government to break the NUM.

What a wonderful group of presenters for our first day! The variety of topics discussed is testimony to the richness of nationalisation and deindustrialisation experience as an area of study. Back tomorrow! (Tweets by @Edda_Nicolson - apologies for any typos/errors!)