Scabs, pickets and camaraderie: words and memories of East Midlands coal miners

Braber, N ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2611-1190, 2025. Scabs, pickets and camaraderie: words and memories of East Midlands coal miners. In: van den Elzen, S and Rigney, A, eds., Memory and the language of contention. Mobilizing memories (1). Leiden: Brill, pp. 68-87. ISBN 9789004692961

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Abstract

Even after almost forty years, the subject of the 1984-85 coal miners’ strike continues to divide people in the UK, particularly in Nottinghamshire, where intense and heated exchanges persistently occur in conferences, the press and social media. In my project on the “pit talk” of East Midlands miners, the subject of the strike and its effects were raised by many former miners on both sides of the divide – those who worked and those who went on strike. This chapter examines the narratives surrounding the strike and the discussions about working relations before, during and after the strike. It investigates themes and keywords of miners’ stories about their experiences and how oral testimonies can be collected from opposing sides who have not conversed constructively for almost forty years. This allows us to think about the relationship between words and memory and demonstrates how language can act as a crucial carrier of memory. The word “camaraderie” above all others, seems to encompass what it means to be a miner.

Item Type: Chapter in book
Creators: Braber, N.
Publisher: Brill
Place of Publication: Leiden
Date: 21 March 2025
Number: 1
ISBN: 9789004692961
Identifiers:
Number
Type
10.1163/9789004692978_005
DOI
2435856
Other
Rights: © Natalie Braber, 2025. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.
Divisions: Schools > School of Arts and Humanities
Record created by: Melissa Cornwell
Date Added: 03 Jun 2025 09:39
Last Modified: 03 Jun 2025 09:39
URI: https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53682

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