Wakefield Museums and Castles

Stephen and Brian Dudley from Fryston carried this homemade banner during the Miners’ Strike in 1984 to 1985. The brothers worked at Fryston Colliery. They joined the strike along with over 150,000 other miners.

The strike began in March 1984. It followed the announcement that Cortonwood Colliery near Barnsley would be closed. This was one of a series of proposed closures of 20 coal mines. The closures would lead to 20,000 miners losing their jobs. The National Union of Mineworkers responded by calling a national strike. 

Striking miners set up pickets outside mines, power stations and other industries dependent on coal. 

The Dudley brothers were flying picketers. They travelled to pickets across the country to support the strike. The places they went to are recorded on in the yellow ribbons on the banner.

Brian’s wife, Lesley, was a seamstress and made the banner. 

The strike was very bitter. Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government refused to compromise. The miners were determined to save their jobs.

The police were brought in to break up pickets, often violently. They arrested over 11,000 for picketing. Stephen Dudley was arrested in Lancaster. 

The strike changed the lives of mining families across the district. Communities rallied together to protect and support striking workers.

The strike ended after a year with the miners returning to work in March 1985.

The National Coal Board sped up its closure plans, and coal mining was privatised in 1994.

The last deep mine in Britain, Kellingley near Knottingley, closed in 2015.