As I reach the midway point of my year cataloguing the Kate Adie collection, my mind is turning to the ways in which we can engage people with its contents. Having a catalogue is the starting point for making the collection accessible and navigable, but there are further steps we want to take. One of these steps is to publish small thematic digital packages of material that give you a taste of what is here and invite further exploration.
The first digital package that we have put together relates to the UK miners’ strike 1984 – 1985, when around three-quarters of the country's 187,000 miners went on strike to oppose expected pit closures and job losses. It feels particularly appropriate to start with this in the 40th anniversary year of the strike, using material from a collection that is located in the North East of England where memories of mining and of the strike are so strong.
[Click on the thumbnails below to open up individual images and video clips OR access a slideshow of all images and clips here]
The Kate Adie collection is particularly broad in its subject matter. While Kate Adie is popularly known for reporting on disasters and conflicts around the world, she was a staff reporter for BBC news, covering whatever was assigned. This is evident in her reporter’s notebooks where a report on the miners’ strike sits next to a report on the summer holiday of the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.
We get a glimpse of the news gathering and reporting process, seeing rough notes and multiple drafts of reports in the notebooks. You’ll see that the text for each report is written in thin columns. Each line when read out would be one second in length, enabling the length of the report to be precisely timed.
Then we see those drafts refined into a television news report.
It’s worth noting the serendipitous survival of some material, with a local news cutting about Arthur Scargill probably being kept because of the news item about Kate Adie on the reverse.
The initial decision to call a national strike without a national ballot was controversial and later ruled illegal.
The striking mineworkers did receive support from some other workers, notably from the railwaymen, but the miners' eventual defeat marked a significant weakening in the power of the trade union movement.
The dispute was a bitter one, characterised by divisions between those striking and those working, and sometimes violent clashes between pickets and police.
Even the Queen was considered to have offered her view on the dispute.
Disputes arising from potential pit closures and job losses were not confined to the UK.
These materials are by no means the whole story of the miners' strike, but they offer a starting point for exploring key themes from one of the major UK labour disputes in the latter part of the twentieth century through contemporary reports. We hope to develop this package further in future by adding material from a different perspective, that of our mining collections.
Acknowledgements:
- Items 1 and 5 are reproduced courtesy of the Sunderland Echo.
- Items 4, 7-10 and 12 are copyright of the BBC.
Find out more:
- If you are interested in knowing more about the Kate Adie collection or would like to discuss a future visit, please contact us: specialcollections@sunderland.ac.uk
- About the miners’ strike at the BBC
- National Coal Mining Museum miners’ strike resource
- See Mike Figgis’ film of the Battle of Orgreave, together with a selection of photographs taken during the 1984 North East miners’ strike including photos of pickets at Monkwearmouth and Easington collieries, marches and demonstrations in Sunderland and everyday family life at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art
- About Archives Revealed, a partnership funding programme between The National Archives, the Pilgrim Trust and the Wolfson Foundation to ensure that significant archive collections, representing the lives and perspectives of all people across the UK, are made accessible to the public for research and enjoyment.