Marking 40 years since the start of the Miners' Strike in Yorkshire

We hear from one North Yorkshire worker about what it was like to walk out

Photo taken at the National Coal Mining Museum
Published 6th Mar 2024

Today marks the 40th anniversary since the start of the coal miners strikes,.

Thousand of jobs were left at risk after the government announced the closures of pits.

It affected families, with many miners across North Yorkshire going unpaid for around a year.

Shaun Mcloughlin worked at Kellingley Colliery near Selby and he was 22 when the strikes started, he told us what he can remember: "The hardship and the struggles, everyone trying to keep their families safe and well, and it was a real hard 12 months.

"I spent most of my time looking round for work during the strike, I was 22-years-old, I'd bought a house one-year earlier, I'd just got married, I had a decent mortgage like anyone else at that time, I got a car on finance, so it was a struggle."

Shaun went on to work at the colliery for quite some time, which closed on 18 December 2015, marking the end of deep-pit coal mining in Britain.

Barry Lyons

Barbara Lyons' husband Barry worked down the pit, across the Wakefield district for more than 30 years, he took part in the year long strike.

Barbara recalls how when times were tough, people were generous: "You learnt who your friends were, we had some friends who came one day with a bag full of food, and said their refrigerator had broken, but it hadn't, we knew it hadn't but it was their way of giving us something. We would have said no normally but with how the situation was, it was all gratefully received."

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