A militant history
This pit has a most militant history, from its opening in 1928, where miners, often victimised after the general Strike, walked to Kent.
The book tells their story: the battles to unionise the pit, strikes in the 1930s over bullying of boy miners to the "illegal" strike of 1942 when 3 leaders were imprisoned and then released through mass pressure.
This tradition of militancy continued through the 1960 stay down strike, the leading role in the 1972 and 1974 national strikes.
Again in 1984/5 the NUM branch and women supporters took a national leading role and again occupied the pit.
As a result 38 men, the whole of the branch committee, were sacked and none reinstated. The victimised miners were stopped from their plan to run the pit as a workers' cooperative and the pit was suddenly closed in 1989.
The book uses voices of miners and their families (some in their 90s) and NUM minutes and archive material to celebrate this history