Dave Douglass
David John Douglass political activist and writer. He worked as a coal miner in the coalfields of Durham and South Yorkshire was NUM Branch Delegate for Hatfield Colliery from 1979. In 1994/5 he became Branch Secretary at Hatfield Main but after the pit was privatised the NUM no longer had any recognition there. From 1994 to 2006 he helped run the Miners Community Advice Centre in Stainforth. The three volumes of his autobiography were published between 2008 and 2010. He is a member of IWW, NUM and Class War.
Latest articles by Dave Douglass
Lifelong friend and comrade
David Douglass remembers Tom Kilburn, August 25 1946 - March 17 2024
Spirit lives on still
There was something approaching panic when George Galloway announced he was attending. David Douglass reports on this month’s commemoration in Doncaster marking the 40th anniversary of the Great Strike
State oppression and a turncoat
David John Douglass reviews Richard O’Rawe, Stakeknife’s dirty war: the inside story of Scappaticci, the IRA’s Nutting Squad and the British spooks who ran the war Merrion Press, 2023, pp272, £14.95
Farewell to an inspiration
Obituary: Gustav (Schlacke) Lamche, director and producer for Cinema Action, August 25 1933-January 15 2023
Past and present
This year’s Durham Miners’ Gala, the 136th, featured the great and good of the trade union movement. RMT’s Mick Lynch, rightly, got a huge cheer. But, as David John Douglass reports, there was also the promotion of pro-imperialist politics when it comes to Ukraine
Unique on the left
Dave Vincent reviews 'David John Douglass, anarchist-syndicalist coalminer: reviews and articles appearing in the Weekly Worker' (pp253, £12)
Class struggle and sport
David John Douglass reviews 'Colliers: Northumberland’s pitmen and their Football League team' by Jon Tait (Rough Badger Press, 2021, pp171, £7)
Great pension robbery
Miners have been deprived of part of their ‘deferred wages’. David John Douglass exposes the actions of successive governments
Story built on lies
David Douglass reviews 'Thatcher vs the miners: the battle for Britain', produced by Harry Bell and Brendan Hughes and broadcast on Channel 5
Units of state terrorism
David John Douglass reviews Harry McCallion 'Undercover war: Britain’s special forces and their secret battle against the IRA'
Defeat of syndicalism
David Douglass reviews Ian Wright's "God’s beautiful sunshine: the 1921 miners’ lockout in the Forest of Dean"
A basic necessity
Tony O’Brien: ‘Tackling the housing crisis with publicly owned construction by direct labour organisations’, self-published, 2018, pp200, £10
Forgotten communities
Review of Garry Lyons' The last seam, directed by Daljinder Singh
Big Meeting lives on
David Douglass reports on the134th Durham Miners Gala
Truth in fiction
Dave Douglass reviews Aly Renwick Gangrene Merlin Press, 2017, pp256, £9.99
Determined to win
Dave Douglass reviews Steve McGrail and Vicky Patterson Cowie miners, Polmaise colliery and the 1984-85 miners’ strike Scottish Labour History Society, 2017, pp146, £6
Big Meeting gets bigger
The 133rd Durham Miners’ Gala this Saturday will see some 150,000 march through the ancient city. Davie Douglass looks at the history and the ongoing significance
Obituaries: Two miners’ heroes
David Douglass remembers Brian Robson and Davey Hopper
Principles of syndicalism
Dave Douglass reviews: Lewis H Mates, 'The great labour unrest: rank and file movements and political change in the Durham coalfield', Manchester University Press, 2016, pp328, £75
Price of insubordination
David Douglass mourns the death of coal as a defeat of the working class
When Marx was a reformist
David Douglass reviews: René Berthier Social democracy and anarchism in the International Workers Association 1864-1877 Merlin Press, 2015, pp256, £16.95
Final act of class vindictiveness
The Tories are presiding over the decimation of not just the steel industry, writes David Douglass
Sad degeneration
What does Arthur think about backing Yvette? Dave Douglass reports
Forget police violence
Too late to worry about all that, says the IPCC. David Douglass looks at its conclusions on the Battle of Orgreave
The real price of coal
Privatisation and intensified competition has driven the attack on mining safety standards everywhere, writes David Douglass of the National Union of Mineworkers
Miners review: Parallel Universes
Ajay Close Trust Tippermuir Books Ltd, 2014, pp355, £9.99
Miners strike: Militants and scabs
Harry Paterson Look back in anger: the miners’ strike in Nottinghamshire 30 years on Five Leaves Publishing, 2014, pp298, £9.99
How Thatcher plotted our defeat
Granville Williams (ed) Settling scores: the media, the police and the miners’ strike Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, pp139, £6.99
Review: Fascism’s local history offensive
Gordon Stridiron, 'Blackshirts in Geordieland', Black House Publishing 2013, pp260, £12
Miners: Record of tragedy
David Douglass reviews: Peter Tuffrey, 'South Yorkshire people and coal: the gallant struggle and final decline', Fonthill Media, 2013, pp176, £12.99
Religion: Painfully detailed origins
David Douglass reviews: John Pickard, 'Behind the myths: the foundations of Judaism, Christianity and Islam', AuthorHouseUK, 2013, pp492, £17.99
Free Derry review: Freedom for a year
David Douglass reviews: Adrian Kerr, 'Free Derry: protest and resistance'. Guildhall Press, 2013, pp224, £11.95
Coal and energy: Walking away from CO2 commitment
David Douglass finds government policy absurd, but not surprising
NUM in court: Arthur Scargill’s dacha debacle
David Douglass comments on the decline and fall of Arthur Scargill's reputation
Tyneside history: A legacy of struggle
David Douglass reviews: Joseph M Fewster, 'The keelmen of Tyneside: labour organisation and conflict in the north-east coal industry 1600-1830', The Boydell Press, 2011, pp232, £60
Middlesborough review: Rapid development and workers’ struggle
David Douglass reviews: Minoru Yasumoto, 'The rise of a Victorian ironopolis: Middlesbrough and regional industrialisation', Boydell Press, 2011, pp250, £60
Scenes of collective confidence and heroism
David Douglass reviews: Peter Tuffrey, 'Yorkshire people and coal', Amberley Publishing, Stroud 2012, pp128, £12.99
The fall of an icon
David Douglass reviews Gregor Gall's 'Tommy Sheridan, from hero to zero: a political biography', Welsh Academic Press, 2012, pp384,
Not Jesus but Brian
Ade Morris (writer and director), Ralph Bernard (producer) Dust; on tour. David Douglass reviews.
Still marching proud
Dave Douglass reviews: David Temple 'The Big Meeting: a history of the Durham Miners' Gala' TUPS books, 2011, pp243,
Forgotten heroism
Dave Douglass reviews Jonathan Symcox, 'The 1984-1985 miners strike in Nottingham: if spirits alone won battles - the diary of John Lowe' Pen and Sword Books, 2011, pp176,
Choose your conspiracy
Dave Douglass reviews Robert Green's A thorn in their side: the Hilda Murrell murder Rata Books, 2011, pp208,
Tory glee and political fantasy
David Douglass reviews Phyllida Lloyd (director) 'The iron lady' 2011, general release
In the footsteps of Kropotkin
How did self-declared anarchists come to support the Nato bombing of Libya? David Douglass reports
Defence of the nation-state
Dave Douglass reviews VN Gelis "How the IMF broke Greece: eyewitness reports and role of the fake left" 2011, pp222,
Pushed as far as we will go
David Douglass reviews Keith Pattison and David Peace 'No redemption: the 1984-85 miners' strike in the Durham coalfield' Flambard Press, Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2010, pp104,
Images of a slaughtered past
David Douglass reviews Peter Tuffrey, Doncaster's collieries (Amberley Publishing, 2011, pp128,
Four victims of industrial demise
David Douglass looks at the background to last week's tragic events at Gleision pit in south Wales
Class war never went away
David Douglass reports on the destruction and restoration of the highly symbolic Wardley miners' banner
Mysteries and controversies
David Douglass continues the debate about the miners' Great Strike
A Militant take on the Great Strike of 1984-85
David Douglass reviews Ian Isaacs's 'When we were miners' Ken Smith Press, 2010, pp180, £7.99
Class, blackened faces, and academic muddle
David Douglass reviews Hester Barron's 'The 1926 miners' lockout: meanings of community in the Durham coalfield' Oxford, 2009, pp314, £65
They weren't all scabs
David Douglass reviews Keith Stanley's 'Nottingham miners do strike' Nottingham Area NUM, pp124, £7
Liquid research
David Douglass reviews Mike Pentelow and Peter Arkell's 'A pub crawl through history: the ultimate boozers' Who's who' Janus, 2010, pp368, £16.99
Friend, comrade, and occasional sparring partner
Obituary: Peter Heathfield, March 2 1929 - May 4 2010. David Douglass celebrates his life
When the sweets were taken away
Craig Wilson reviews David Douglass's The wheel's still in spin : Read and Noir : 2009, pp466, £12.95
Who broke it, Cameron?
David Douglass points the finger at Thatcherism and New Labour
Old myth exposed
Dave Douglass reviews John Charlton's 'Don't you hear the H bombs thunder? Youth and politics on Tyneside in the late 50s and early 60s' (Merlin, 2009, pp202, £14.95)
Anarchist bombs and working class struggle
David Douglass reviews Louis Adamic's 'Dynamite: the story of class violence in America', AK Press, 2009, pp352, £13
A northern giant
David Douglass reviews Keith Armstrong's 'Common words and the wandering star' University of Sunderland Press. pp296, £7.95
End of the road for tower
David Douglass, former NUM branch official and Yorkshire area executive member, looks back at a cooperative experiment
An unsubstantiated sloppy mish-mash
David Douglass reviews Ian Hernon's Riot (Pluto Press, 2006, pp320, £19.99)
Class resistance and conspiracy
David Douglass reviews Margaret Hutcherson's Let no wheels turn: the wrecking of the Flying Scotsman, 1926 TUPS Books, 2006, pp91, £6.95
Intriguing cameos
Dave Douglas reviews: North West TUC members 70th anniversary of the Spanish civil war pp18, £1.50
Class war and damned lies
Dave Douglass (branch secretary Hatfield NUM) reviews: Janice Sutherland, 'Strike: when Britain went to war', Channel 4, Saturday January 24 Steven Condie, 'The miners' strike', BBC2, Tuesday January 27
Provocative and insulting
There was nothing remotely progressive in the defeat of Jacobitism, argues Dave Douglass, in this response to Neil Davidson of the Scottish Socialist Party's Socialist Worker platform
Enriched pit culture
Dave Douglass reviews 'The Foreigner' by Paul Cox
Class truths
Dave Douglass reviews James Cameron's ‘Titanic’ (1997, general release)
Miserly payouts for miners
Drugs - moral dilemma of the left
Shallow affair
Dave Douglass reviews 'Evita', directed by Alan Parker
Militant marshal music
Dave Douglass reviews Brassed off (directed by Michael Herman, UK)
Arbitrary ages
Class War calls a halt
The IRA and armed strategy
NUM strength and weakness
Not so simple
Dave Douglass, vice-chair of South Yorkshire NUM panel responds to a Weekly Worker article on the miners’ Great Strike of 1984-5 (February 29)