13.09.2012

Scenes of collective confidence and heroism

David Douglass reviews: Peter Tuffrey, 'Yorkshire people and coal', Amberley Publishing, Stroud 2012, pp128, £12.99

As a photo-historian, Peter Tuffrey hit something of a rich seam when he gained permission from the Yorkshire Post to publish this collection from the paper’s extensive photo archive. This is the third in his Yorkshire people collection: the other two were Yorkshire people and railways and Yorkshire people at work.

Certainly his greatest task in preparing this book must have been narrowing down the huge volume of photos into a comprehensive coverage of the last 50 years - shooting fish in a barrel comes to mind. It is a shame really that the Weekly Worker does not have the space to publish a selection - although the Miners’ Advice website hopes to carry seven of the photos from the hundreds in the book on its review page (www.minersadvice.co.uk).

As ‘the national newspaper of Yorkshire’ in the heart of Britain’s biggest coalfield, the Yorkshire Post has been unique really in chronicling the life, and frequently the deaths, in the vast Yorkshire coalfield communities of the last half century. Its archive records disasters, showing scenes from the pitheads, victims and rescuers - perhaps the only time the paper had any sympathy for us. By contrast to this excellent photo coverage of the strikes and pickets from the 1960s, through our most testing period in the 80s, to the final stand in the early 90s, the actual commentary stank to high heaven. The Yorkshire Post was the rightwing voice of middle class Yorkshire - rooted not in industry, but in the rural Tory heartlands. Arthur Scargill, president of the National Union of Mineworkers during the biggest battles of the 80s and 90s, was continually at war with the paper, which few if any pit families ever bought anyway.

Fortunately Peter does not borrow much from its commentary on the photos he presents, and there are some excellent, well chosen, evocative images here - many of them haunting or powerful; none of them pretty or scenic.

In the nicest possible way I find the book sad - sad to the point of tears. Is it just a nostalgic sigh for all that’s past? I think anyone who looks through this book and dwells on the scenes of collective confidence, mass struggle and victory, alongside the horror of loss and injury, as well as god-almighty heroism in strikes and disaster, can forgive me for that. Aye, it is who we were: any of these photos of smiling, ‘pillicking’, piss-taking miners ascending the shafts, fighting the earth or, arm in arm, rank on rank, facing down the mass ranks of armoured guardians of property and power, could be of us and our mates. The book records what and who we were - and sadly what we and our communities and union are no more.

It will stir mixed emotions, but is certainly a credit to Peter, who, correctly in my view, regards the period and scenes covered in his book as the most eventful and important in mining’s long history.