Easington in 1984 by Keith Pattison. Josie Smith, a retired and disabled miner, is arrested outside his home and his distraught wife tries to stop the police taking him away.

Police seal off the village, corner of Ascot Street and Office Street, Easington Colliery, 27 August 1984 by Keith Pattison. The police deliberately provoked unrest by walking strike breakers through the village to the pit. Skirmishes were common.

The community looking at that police line as the police seal off the village to get the first strike breaker, Paul Wilkinson, into the pit, photo by Keith Pattison.

Kevin Lee collecting sea coal for distribution to the pensioners whose supply of free coal had been stopped by the Coal Board during the strike, by Keith Pattison.

Keith Pattison produced a remarkable record of the miners’ strike in Easington in 1984 and his book is highly recommended. When Thatcher broke the unions she also broke the connection between people and politics at workplaces like this. In many ways it was the first step on the

road to where we are now, with shallow egotistical politicians who care only for power, status and lining their own pockets. It was the end of any true working-class influence on national politics and we are worse off as a result.

The community at Easington still gather each year for a miners’ picnic even though the colliery is long gone. Here are some photos from it in 2019.

One final photo, Easington Miners’ Welfare Hall, strikers vote to return to work without an agreement, March 1985 by Keith Pattison. Thatcher dismantled the infrastructure and industry for large scale manual labour, and through that the mechanisms for working class activism and

and political engagement. It left communities without a voice and without collectivism created by the power of a shared experience. In many ways it sowed the seeds from which the dissatisfaction which led to Brexit grew and there is no way back that I can see.