The Miners Strike is
a moment filled with such passion that it needs, deserves, fiction of
the highest quality in order to stand by its own inherent power.
It also remains a
divisive moment – the way its shadow falls across the current
contest for leadership of the Labour party is but one expression of
that. And to be able to address it without taking sides is not easy.
Habianic is not writing a political account, and yet this is one of
those subjects where any comment is political.
It is a story of a
mining community – it is a “grass roots” vision of the time of
the strike. Both the Government and the Union Leaders are remote
from this narrative – their battle and the battle for, and within,
this community while they co-exist seem to essentially to be
separate.
It tries to bear
honest witness to those within that community who find themselves on
both sides – the strikers and the “scabs”. It gives an insight
into why some of those within that community did not strike, their
motivation is not selfish, they believed it was the only way to save
the pit, and to save the community (this is given as the genuine the
motivation of the local management – any cynical manipulation of
the strike is ascribed significantly higher up the chain of command).
While others are subjected to blackmail, one to avoid disclosure of
his sexuality – in a mid-80s mining community better a scab than a
poof?
All of this provides
a rich and vivid backdrop for what is at heart a Romeo and Juliet
tale – which might sound like a criticism but it is not intended
that way. It is a tale of love, there is the central couple, “Red”
and “Scrapper”, but they are surrounded by others, relationships
under pressure, relationships crumbing under pressure and
relationships at best almost surviving. None of these are fairy
tales, they are authentic, messy, hard tales of love – love that
endures and love that just is not enough.
It is a novel that
managed to get under my skin – it is a couple of months since I
finished it and yet it is still very fresh in my mind.
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