Friday, 14 March 2014

Images of the past: the miners' strike book review from Tribune magazine


Images Of The Past: The Miners’ Strike is a largely-pictorial record of the untold story of life at the sharp end in the pit villages. The black and white pictures by Jenkinson, official photographer for The Yorkshire Miner (who tragically died of cancer two years ago) capture poignantly the joy, the tears, the police violence, the suffering and the self-help society of the mining communities. It brought tears to these old eyes.

Martin’s extensive image library of the labour movement is being managed by his daughter Justine. He collected graphic evidence of what life was actually like on the picket line, in the soup kitchens and on the dolorous day of the return to work. My favourite is a grainy shot of a commemorative march in the snow in Moorthorpe to the two pickets who lost their lives, David Jones and Joe Green. 

But all the pictures are enlightening and the story of the strike is told intelligently and with passion by Metcalf and Harvey. If you want to know about the miners, buy this book.  


Images of the Past - THE MINERS’ STRIKE 
 
Martin Jenkinson, Mark Harvey and Mark Metcalf
 

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