wives hold
Midlands
conference
By Julie Redman AT KERESLEY, a pit village near Coventry, miners' wives have been organised since the beginning of the strike. They run 3 kitchens, make up food parcels, go picketting, fund-raising, and speak at meetings.
Liz Sugrave for example most often chairs the Coventry Miners' Support Group; Mrs Hood makes sandwiches for the pickets as well as collecting food for food parcels. Both are regularly to be found on picket lines, as are many other women.
The women hold their own meetings each week as well as sending delegates to the men's strike commit-
On September 1 a coach-load of women and children from Keresley and women delegates from the Miners Support Group attended a conference in Wolverhampton convened by "Midland Women Against Pit Closures". Delegations came from all over the Midlands — both miners' wives and women from support groups.
The day's discussion was divided into group and plenary sessions and was stimulating and useful.
In my group the wives were asked if the strike had changed their lives at all. One delegate from Staffordshire said that she had been against the strike for the first month, and had argued all the time with her husband. She had thought that if Thatcher Socialist Viewpoint, No. 1, Autumn 1984. Page 4
The national demonstration of miners' wives. wanted to close pits then she would close them anyway. But after a month she decided to go and find out about the strike for herself, and that had changed everything.
Another wife said "Do you know, we haven't had a good row since the strike started, and I love a good row."
Two wives from another pit in Staffordshire were working. They said that their husbands had much more respect for them now. They thought maybe it helped that they were the breadwin-
In the final plenary, the miners' wives came forward with a list of demands they wanted conference to carry out. A Midlands Women's Coordinating Committee was elected, with a majority of miners' wives.
This will prepare fact sheets - for example Rights on Arrest; Finance (How to freeze a mortgage, etc) — circulate ideas for fundraising, encourage the involvement of more miners' wives and organise a mass picket of women.
Conference also requested a page in The Miner, and called for a national conference of miners' wives groups with representatives from every pit.
It was also decided to maintain the organisation after the strike ends, in order to support other workers in struggle.
I feel sure the other 70 or so women who attended the conference came away, as I did, feeling stronger than before and with the satisfaction of a day well spent.