The Miners’ Campaign Tapes

Fight. Organise.

In 1984 a group of independent film and video makers decided to show their support for the miners’ strike using the tools they had available: their cameras. On the picket lines, at the marches and in the soup kitchens, they recorded the testimonies of the striking miners, their wives and supporters, in a fight against anti-strike propaganda dominating the mainstream media.

A testament to solidarity and activism, the tapes tackle issues which continue to occupy us today: the right to demonstrate, police tactics, political double-speak, the role of the media. They are a crucial document of a cataclysmic episode of British history.

1 Not Just Tea and Sandwiches
2 The Coal Board’s Butchery
3 Solidarity
4 Straight Speaking
5 The Lie Machine
6 Only Doing Their Job?

• Illustrated booklet with essays by Chris Reeves, in which he discusses the making and distribution of the Tapes, and by Professor Julian Petley, author of Media Hits the Pits: the Media and the Coal Dispute (1984) and contributor to Shafted: the Media, the Miners’ Strike and the Aftermath (2009).