Pride
The Unlikely Story of the True Heroes of the Miner's Strike
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
In 1984, a small group of metropolitan homosexual men and lesbian women stepped away from the vibrant culture and hedonism of London's defiant gay scene to befriend and support the beleaguered villages of a very traditional mining community in the remote valleys of South Wales.
They did so in the midst of the 1984 miners' strike - the most bitter and divisive dispute for more than half a century, and in one of the most turbulent periods in modern British history.
In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher's hardcore social and fiscal policies devastated Britain's traditional industries, and at the same time, AIDS began to claim lives across the nation. At the very height of this perfect storm, as the government and police battled 'the enemy within' in communities across the land and newspapers whipped up fear of the gay 'perverts' who were supposedly responsible for inflicting this lethal new pestilence upon the entire population, two groups who ostensibly had nothing in common - miners and homosexuals - unexpectedly made a stand together and forged a lasting friendship.
It was an alliance which helped keep an entire valley clothed and fed during the darkest months of the strike. And it led directly to a long-overdue acceptance by trades unions and the Labour Party that homosexual equality was a cause to be championed.
Pride tells the inspiring true story of how two very different communities - each struggling to overcome its own bitter internal arguments and long-established fault lines, as well as facing the power of a hostile government and press found common cause against overwhelming odds. And how this one simple but unlikely act of friendship would, in time, help change life in Britain - forever.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The vital assistance provided by English gay and lesbian activists to striking Welsh miners in 1984 and 1985, the subject of the film Pride, is winningly presented in this oral history. After Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government cracked down on the mining industry, Welsh miners hurriedly executed a strike, but the short lead time and lack of planning meant their families weren't prepared for the resulting loss in income and struggled to get by. Despite the miners' antigay prejudices, members of England's gay and lesbian communities, who had also been targeted by the Thatcher regime, decided to organize to raise funds for food and other necessities for miners' families. They formed Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM). LGSM member Brett Haran describes the initiative as "an opportunity to engage with people who opposed us; to point out that the miners were under attack just as we'd always been under attack and so we need to make common cause." The history is effectively conveyed in the voices of the participants, with minimal annotation and context provided by Tate. Even those familiar with the contours of the story from the film will learn something new from these detailed narratives, which chillingly describe how aggressively the Thatcher government oppressed its perceived foes.
