GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
Our language
ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends a brilliant collection of poems written to accompany stunning images of the Miners’ strike
SOWING DISCORD: A Leicester miner with a placard reflecting the media/Thatcher narrative (not in the book)
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
Strike
Sarah Wimbush
Stairwell books £15
EVERYTHING the NUM predicted on its badges and posters during 1984-5 did come true.
There is no British coal industry left, not even in Nottingham. Youth unemployment in the former coalfields rocketed and has still not come down just as many former miners never worked again, spending their non-working years claiming dole not coal, which remained a cheap import from Poland.
What used to be called the working class are now the working poor and the absolutely skint.
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STEVEN ANDREW is moved beyond words by a historical account of mining in Britain made from the words of the miners themselves
HEATHER WOOD pays tribute to a champion of working-class women and a fierce voice of solidarity
In the third extract from her new memoir, former NUM headquarters staffer HILARY CAVE recounts how women throughout the striking coalfields showed their mettle when the going got tough
In the second extract from her new memoir, former NUM headquarters staffer HILARY CAVE recounts the bitter struggle to provide sustenance for strikers’ families, and the invidious role of David Willetts – now in the House of Lords