ON Saturday, Fife Trades council held its annual International Brigade memorial event to remember the working-class people who went to Spain to fight fascism.

I smiled the whole day, not just because the turnout exceeded expectations but also because of the number of people there who I met for the first time. We were also so privileged to have Tam Watters, co-author of Our Fathers Fought Franco, speak at our reception after the memorial and the grandson of Tommy Bloomfield, who went to Spain not once, but twice.

Trades councils all over Britain hold similar events — May Day, International Women’s Day, Workers’ Memorial Day and International Brigade events. It is crucial we continue these events.

Today, trades councils are again faced with the ugly face of fascists invading their towns, as seen in Erskine and Elgin here in Scotland.

So we must not only maintain the events we have but also introduce new ones to ensure that the legacy of our working-class roots, history and movement is disseminated to our younger comrades and our communities who may not have experienced events that took place within our lifetimes.

In Fife, I am proud to be the chair of Fife TUC and the secretary of the Fife People’s Assembly. But I am also a newish member of a local community group called Save the Cage. A group of dedicated people who want to keep and promote the heritage of Fife miners and the solidarity and community spirit that was so evident where we all grew up.

This group has, before my membership, raised £11,000 to create what is a mini outdoor museum at Lochore Meadows that will educate and keep alive the life and times of miners in a community that was built on coal. We still need £30,000 to complete this project. For more information search Facebook for Save the Cage.

One of our wee group Andrew “Watty” Watson campaigned for nearly 10 years to be exonerated for what he believes was the conviction of the youngest miner during the strike. A week after his 19th birthday, Watty committed the “revolutionary” act of raising several V-signs at police vans taking non-striking miners to Comrie colliery in Fife.

He was arrested and convicted that day of breach of the peace, and four days later the Coal Board sacked him. He was reinstated a year later, only weeks before an industrial tribunal was due to take place.

Watty is now organising a Scotland-wide march and what I would call an “auld fashioned” miners’ gala starting from the village where I was born and bred, Ballingry, to Lochore Meadows Country Park — a park that was created on top of the bings and slag heaps of the Mary Pit.

This march and gala takes place on June 15 2024 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the miners’ strike.

This is another working-class struggle we need to commemorate and never forget. Thatcher perpetuated and intensified the class war by attacking the miners and the NUM. It was an overt political attack on our class and the miners took the only action they could and fought back.

There was to be no “just transition” for all the mining communities. It was to force the deindustrialisation of Britain, where the banks and the City of London were prioritised and working-class communities were sacrificed on the altar of the free market.

Why is this important? We are faced with the same situation today. All governments and parties in Britain talk about a just transition to green energy, where in reality there are no plans and they all advocate the free market as the partner to deliver this just transition. At least Thatcher’s plan — to destroy the miners, then the rest of the trade union movement — was more transparent.

So an open invitation to all readers. Come and join us on June 15, in the village I was born and let’s show the buggers we still remember and won’t accept another decimation of our communities, just because they want the free market to deliver a just transition to net zero.

Tam Kirby is chair of Fife trades council.