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Picketing the National Coal Board. Sheffield, 1984

Barbara ÌýDrabble (née Jackson) grew up in Pitsmoor, Sheffield and was 39 at the time of the Miners Strike in 1984-5. She had a white collar job at the National Coal Board offices on Queen Street near Sheffield Cathedral.

Although she had no family mining connections, Barbara felt so strongly about the Miners Strike that she was one of a handful of women who went on strike for the whole year.

Nine people from her office picketed the National Coal Board building for the duration of the year-long strike, and Barbara quit work there within 24 hours of the strike ending in March 1985.

Barbara had one teenage daughter at the time of the Strike. She is now retired and lives near Graves Park in Sheffield.

When the miners strike began in March 1984, a group of women in Barnsley got together and formed Women Against Pit Closures. Soon after, individual groups of women all over the country set up their own spontaneous Women Against Pit Closures groups.

Barbara Jackson, former member of Sheffield WAPC

How did you come to join Sheffield Women Against Pit Closures?

"When I joined WAPC, I had already been on strike for about three months which was all getting to be a bit of a grind and repetitious. I needed something else alongside each morning's picketing.

"The NUM had their offices at St James' House at the back of Sheffield Cathedral and national Women Against Pit Closures were given resources and office space there.

"Sheffield Women Against Pit Closures met at the unemployed centre on West Street. There was so much enthusiasm, it was great if you were feeling de-motivated. There were so many women from around South Yorkshire, full of ideas. It lifted your spirits.

"Some were miners' mothers, wives, sisters, daughters... but some were people who were just involved politically. I had no mining background but I had really strong feelings that I couldn't carry on working for the National Coal Board while the strike was going on.

Women Against Pit Closures 1984 memorabilia

"There were about nine of usÌýwho went on strike from our office at the Coal Board, out of about 350 people. We picketed our offices on Queen Street every day.

"We turned up, did our picket duty and then went off and did different things. I did a lot with Sheffield Women Against Pit Closures. In November 1984 we were invited over to Belfast to speak about the issues which were affecting us, that was a really interesting experience.

"NALGO trade union - the local government union (now UNISON) gave us a lot of support. They'd come and join us on the picket line for about an hour every day bringing soup, sausage rolls, fundraising for us... Things like that were really important because a year is a long time to be out on strike.

NALGO Miners Strike donation letter, 1984

"There were very few women were on strike - some canteen workers, some white collar workers like me..."

How did you keep motivated to get up every morning for a year?

"I don't know, I really don't know. It wasn't the sort of thing you could dip your toes in, we were very committed.

"There was no half way position - you either had to be at work or you had to be on strike. It's really hard to sustain if you haven't got politics or a trade union background.

"I've always been a political person - I was in the Labour party in the 80s. At that time you couldn't be a member of the Labour party unless you were a member of a trade union. I was one of these people who was dissatisfied with the way things were in this country, but I had nowhere to put that energy or no way to articulate it."

Maltby miners' return to work, 1985

How did you feel in the final days of the Strike?

"After you've been out on strike for a year, you're pretty much free spirits. We got a lot of our information from radio, TV, The Miner (industry newspaper produced by the NUM). A couple of guys came to our picket line every day from two pit villages. They always brought information.

"Eventually you heard on the radio that the miners were going back to work, and you just thought, 'S***, I've got to do that as well."

"The feeling... I think it was depression and shock. After you've beenÌýon strike for a year you've adopted another way of life and a new routine.

Picketing the National Coal Board, Sheffield, 1984

"There's a sense of relief because you know it's got to come to an end some time, but also a shock because you knew that once you returned to work or the strike stopped, all those outlets, friendships, power that you'd had because you stepped out of the work situation... was going to vanish. You were going to be conformist again, going back to work 9-5. It was just shock and depression.

"On the day the strike ended we all decided to meet as usual at our offices on Queen Street at 8am. We decided we'd go back into work as a group so there were no individuals.

"A couple of us were seen as more... ringleaders. We were whisked upstairs to the manager's office and told that we'd be on probation and they'd keep an eye on us, so 'perhaps you might like to go home and think about what your future's going to be with the NCB and then return tomorrow and let us know whether you accept these conditions.'

Miners Strike donation letter, 1984

"I never went back. I wasn't going back after being on strike for a year."

How would it have been if you had gone back to work?

"I don't think they'd have been out-and-out nasty to me, but I was also aware that the people I worked with were crossing the picket line every day for a year, and in the early days some very, very nasty things were said on both sides. So I wasn't looking forward to going back to work with those people.

"The people I'd been on strike with didn't even work on the same floor as me so it's not as if we were a group who could go back to work together - motivating and sustaining each other.

"I just didn't feel strong enough to go back in and put up with the atmosphere, the looks, work my way back into relationships with people.

Barbara Jackson, former member of Sheffield WAPC

"Adrian was the other one who was whisked up to the manager's office - he did go back, he said he was only going back for three months and then he'd have sorted something else out. That was great that he felt he could go back in, bluff it out with them - stick it out for three months and then leave. I didn't feel I could or wanted to do that."

So what did you do?

"I got an administration job at Sheffield Centre Against Unemployment. I'd thought how am I going to explain on a CV that I've been on strike for a year? How am I going to get a reference from the Coal Board? But that wasn't a problem because the Centre Against Unemployment totally understood those issues and they'd supported the miners strike anyhow.

"After that I went to university as a mature student and did an applied social science course at Sheffield Hallam which was then the polytechnic.

"Women who were involved in the miners strike were very high profile immediately after the strike because a lot of people were very impressed with the work women had done.

"It had helped the miners' cause because without the women's involvement the strike wouldn't have been sustained for a year.

"But it also helped the women's movement - a load of working class women who'd never been exposed to anything before, suddenly were.

Women Against Pit Closures 1984-85 logo

"I was surprised by how insular the lives of lots of mining women from pit villages were. They were exposed to a hell of a lot during the strike.

So the 1980s Miners Strike had an impact on feminism?

"I was already influenced by feminism, but not in an articulated or academic sense - just a vague understanding.

"Being involved with so many women because of the Strike gave me the argument and the courage and the openings to raise issues about women and their place in society. The two [feminism and the Miners Strike] were intertwined.

Barbara and her daughter Louise on Fargate, 1985

What was your family situation during the year you were on strike?

"I was on my second marriage but it broke down during the Strike - it was one of the minor reasons it broke down, but not THE reason.

"I had a daughter, Louise, who was 16-17 during the Strike. She was coming to the end of her school life, sorting out what she was going to do.

"My husband ran his own garage. So domestically I had come to a period in my life when everyone else was doing their own thing and I wasn't there as the main focus of their life in a practical sense, so that helped me feel free to do what I wanted to.

"By the time of the miners strike, I didn't realise it at the time but I was bored - at a loose end, and being involved in the strike gave me that enormous kick up the backside which I needed.

Barbara's miners strike scrapbook

Barbara had unearthed her scrapbook of miners strike bits and pieces. It's packed with letters, photos, press clippings and posters...

"I'd had all these things in a cardboard box at the top of the wardrobe. When the 20th anniversary of the miners strike came round in 2004 I thought, 'Do I feel strong enough to get them out?' I finally did."

"This is our banner... Here's a poster for Sing Along for Socialism at City Hall in January 1985. There were loads of benefits and fundraisers during the strike. Sheffield City Hall was used extensively by the NUM to hold mass rallies.

"This photograph on the front of The Cutting Edge (a book by women who were involved in the miners strike) is from an NUM rally. They called loads of women together at Barnsley Civic Hall.

"Ooh, this is my letter to The Sheffield Star saying that I'm ashamed of my fellow workers' attitude in crossing the picket line!"

Barbara says 25 years later she still feels exactly the same about those who went on strike and those who didn't.

"The first day of the Strike we stopped about 50 people from going into work at the National Coal Board. As the week went on we were down to nine who stuck it out to the end.

Did you have sympathy and understanding for any of your colleagues who went back to work?

"No. Everybody was in the same position: 'I can't afford to be on strike, or lose the money' - as if we could!

"We were there because we were taking a principled stand but most people dont have those principles or feel that strongly.

Anne Scargill and WAPC, Buckingham Palace, 1985

"Even 25 years later if I bump into anybody I worked with at the time, who crossed that picket line, I can't bear to talk to them.

"It was as though it was yesterday and they're still doing it."

:: Barbara was speaking to Grace Shaw in February 2009.

Click on the links below to find out more about other local Women Against Pit Closures - Betty Cook, Caroline Poland, Jackie Keating and Lesley Boulton.