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Groups of women joined forces to look after their menfolk, their children and each other in the hard times during the year-long strike.

Christmas card produced by Sheffield WAPC (1984)

They were known as Women Against Pit Closures (WAPC). As well as actively protesting and collecting for the families affected by the strikes, they also produced all sorts of protest paraphernalia - postcards, calendars, badges, a book called 'We Are Women, We Are Strong', t-shirts, banners - and also Christmas cards.

The Local Studies library in Sheffield holds two of the Christmas cards produced by Sheffield Women Against Pit Closures, printed by local firm Sheaf Graphics.

Women Against Pit Closures banner

One card features the silhouette of a pithead; the other, a miner's lamp. Inside, both say 'Peace and Solidarity'.

Christmas card produced by Sheffield WAPC (1984)

Christmas 1984 - We Are Women, We Are Strong

The following excerpt, titled 'Christmas 1984', comes from a book produced by the local WAPC. The book was called We Are Women, We Are Strong and a copy is held at the Local Studies library in Sheffield.

"Christmas 1984: At Kiveton [Colliery in Rotherham] we did 558 food parcels. Each miner had 4lb chicken and all you would need to make breakfast, dinner and tea on Christmas Day.

"For this we must thank all those who gave us the most wonderful support be it goods, food, money and all the food bags and plastic carrier bags.

"We were helped by the local butchers, bakers, grocers, farmers, hairdressers and the bicycle shop and video shop helped by giving us free service. Plus national and international help.

"As a new idea for fundraising Sheffield WAPC started printing t-shirts. We bought them reasonably priced, had 'WAPC' printed on them, and they just took off.

Women Against Pit Closures 1984-85 logo

"The t-shirts were seen at every picket line and women's events - Ireland, Germany, Belgium - in fact wherever we went the t-shirts were wanted...

"Before Christmas we published a Sheffield WAPC calendar. Besides being a good fundraiser (it raised over 拢2000) we wanted it to be a tribute to women past and present who had taken part in mining struggles... providing food; speaking at meetings; picketing and also in the past being mineworkers themselves.

"We had a lot of fun at times providing and distributing the calendars."

- From 'We Are Women, We Are Strong' (1984)

Anne Scargill, Betty Heathfield and other WAPCs

Cortonwood

The miners strike was Britain's most bitter industrial dispute of recent times, and it was triggered by the announcement that one South Yorkshire pit, Cortonwood in the Dearne Valley, was to close.

Jackie Keating lived in Brampton, the village where the Cortonwood pit was based. She was involved in WAPC and she recalls how the mining community received a lot of donations and support from Russian miners who, in many cases, would be living an even harder life.

Jackie Keating's husband and father were both miners; her husband was arrested on the picket line in June 1984 - the morning of the Battle of Orgreave.

Jackie recalls that they saved up bits and pieces over the weeks to make sure the kids weren't affected by the hard Christmas - and the NUM also gave presents for the miners' children.

Picket arrest in Orgreave

Jackie says that although their small children remembered that "Dad was home a lot" around that period, they didn't notice the hard Christmas that year. But she says her daughter wouldn't trust the police for a long time after seeing some of the events of the miners strike.

Jackie's book about the strike, 'Counting the Cost', is held at Sheffield Libraries.

Background to the Miners Strike

On 5th March 1984 the men at the Cortonwood pit walked out on the announcement that it would close, and other miners all over Yorkshire walked out too - not realising that it would be a year before they returned.

Previous coal strikes had been over in a matter of weeks, but this time both the National Union of Miners and the government dug in for a lengthy battle. It was a brutal period and many in mining communities still feel the bitterness.

South Yorkshire was a region particularly affected by the strikes. Follow the link for more features about the miners strike in South Yorkshire.

Read more on the background to the miners strike across the UK via the link below.