Making connections

I got a call from a friend of Ruth's from her university days in Manchester. This friend now works freelance in TV, and is working on a documentary series for Channel 4, provisionally planned to mark the 40th anniversary of the UK Miners' Strike, in 2024.  She saw me interviewed in a 1984 BBC documentary about policing during the strike, recognised the resemblance with Ruth and got in touch.  I'd been a civil liberties monitor on picket lines, for a local group (Sheffield Policewatch) in 1984-5.   That documentary - 'Taking Liberties' - was directed by the wonderful Yvette Vanson.  

Anyway... all this is long ago. Meeting up with Ruth's friend gave me a useful prompt to go through yet more of the old boxes of photos and documents crammed into my study. I did find some useful items for the TV team, and was able to direct them to more material in the Sheffield City Libraries' excellent local archives. The find that moved me most was an old minutes book... handwritten minutes, meticulously recording decisions about our picket-line monitoring observations, about-circulating the resulting reports to MPs and media contacts, about fund-raising. One small thread in the larger tapestry of that intense year, which featured so much effort and solidarity... and whose aftermath was so devastating for miners and their communities.