Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Strikers helped to achieve a much more democratic Wales
Extract taken from p109-118 of History on our Side: Wales and the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike by Hywel Francis
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ONE other alliance, justifiably considered by many of those involved to be the most remarkable, was that which was created, nurtured and sustained between the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners Group (LGSM) in London and the Neath, Dulais and Swansea Valley Support Group in the South Wales Coalfield.
Thanks to playwright Micheal Kerrigan and the script development by Patricia Byrne for Pits and Perverts, first performed in 2013 when it toured Northern Ireland, and writer Steven Beresford’s film Pride, released in September 2014, that alliance has now achieved a wider, indeed universal, recognition.
It is also to be welcomed that a better and deeper historical understanding has been achieved through the research of Diarmaid Kelliher, in his illuminating and groundbreaking article Solidarity and Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners 1984-85 in History Workshop Journal (Spring 2014).
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