North Staffs Miners’ Wives Action Group

The Group was formed in response to the 1984 miners’ strike and members have been actively campaigning for over 40 years. After the strike ended the group still met every week, determined to continue supporting the miners who were sacked or in prison. Their friends at Banner Theatre suggested they start a choir. They started performing and got gigs around the country.

The women continued to make links with other struggles; Wapping and the print workers strike, Viraj Mendis in Manchester, Asian strikers in Birmingham. They saw a similar picture of a besieged community in the north of Ireland in Belfast and Derry, visiting Irish political prisoners in Belfast as well as Irish women political prisoners in jail in Durham. They stood on picket lines with fire fighters and opposed the war in Iraq.

In 1992 another huge pit closure programme was announced which the women were not prepared to let happen without opposition. The Women Against Pit Closures (WAPC) agreed a plan of pit camps similar to those set up by the Greenham Women. The North Staffs women set up a caravan for six months outside the Trentham Colliery, the last local deep pit in North Staffordshire, to save it from closure. Brenda, Bridget, and Gina occupied the pit for three days with Rose coordinating activities from the caravan.

The North Staffs Miners’ Wives Action Group are close friends, comrades and activists with the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign and involved in doing some wonderful events together as well as continuing to organise their own events and activities.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1B7JDMK1hN/?mibextid=wwXIfr

https://www.bbc.co.uk/stoke/content/articles/2009/02/12/north_staffs_miners_wives_action_feature.shtml

https://catchingstories.infamousarts.co.uk/?page_id=404

https://lipsticksocialist.com/2024/12/01/my-interview-with-rose-hunter-of-the-north-staffs-miners-wives-action-group/#:~:text=From%20then%20on%20Rose%20became,instead%20of%20Rose%20cooking%20Sunday

Keele University has an archive spanning the Group’s activism from inception to the present day and comprises correspondence, reports, minutes, diaries, performance scripts, song sheets, interviews, photographs, recordings, campaign literature and press cuttings. Enquiries should be directed to special.collections@keele.ac.uk