Socialist Outlook spoke to SIAN JAMES, chairperson of the South Wales Women's Support Groups in 1984-5 What do you think were the most important experiences of women involved in the 1984 strike? It was important that we could come together and work together. For many of us it was the first opportunity to play an active role in our community without being told 'You're women, go away, be quiet. The confidence to say that we were part of our community and that we had a right to say how our communities operated.
We also learnt how wide the struggle was. We had to look towards local support groups, to the Area NUM and to a wider group of supporters. That was an experience that many people have never had before. Lesbians and gays in London and black workers in Brent, NALGO, were prepare to support us. We went to Broadwater Farm and to Brixton. Suddenly we weren't alone. What brought the women together? In the beginning, it was really knowing that it was our communities under threat. Money and wages were never an issue. It was about the right to remain in our communities and right to jobs in our communities. It was not only our husbands or fathers or brothers, it was future generations. DULL OUT Page ll What conclusions were drawn by women at the end of the strike? The strike did not end the way we wanted. There wasn't a group within the coalfield that stayed more loyal to Scargill. Even now when I meet women, we say this is not the way we wanted it to end. We were prepared to see it through' What have been the particular affects on women since 1984 and the pit closures? To a certain extent it has been economic, it has been losing contact with the communities tha they lived in. However, many of the women are playing much more active roles in their community. They have taken on a job, or have had the confidence to do things outside home. Being part of a mining community has been lost, people have been scattered to take up different jobs.
There was this assumption that as women from working class backgrounds, somehow we had ditched our traditional roles. It was felt that we should have been pushed back to supporting the man of the house at the end of the struggle. I think that was something coming from the unions locally. Do you think there is a difference in the attitude now of the area executive to the participation of How do you think we can help women get involved during the present struggle? the use of welfare halls and miners' institutes. 1984-5? will do it for you' dirty word.
MOEN AUT PhN Ted he NOT THE ozen Vainst Closure* approval of capitalism an the market, with the suggestion that we could control the market. There was no explanation of how that would be New realism is attempting to make us become them. The new realists and their supporters in magazines like Marxism Today said that Scargill was the downfall of the labour movement.
The miners stood for justice and fairness and our basic rights. They were right in 1984 and they
Socialist Outlook spoke to TYRONE O'SULLIVAN, day of action, either before Christmas or in early January before the review. But socialist Miners V