Strike Stories: Sian James (activist and politician)

In this series of Strike Stories we hear the highs and lows of that life changing year through the eyes of miners, families, police officers and politicians as they recall what life was like in 84–85.

The Strike Stories form part of the Streic 84–85 Strike exhibition which is on display at National Musem Cardiff until April 27 2025.

© Imogen Young

Sian James, activist and politician.

I was married at 16, had two kids by the time I was twenty, with a hubby who worked underground. Within two years of starting work, he’d voted to back Scargill for the NUM and the whole family were behind him. Scargill was our leader, he’d fight on our behalf and we were immensely loyal. There was no hesitation when it came to the strike.

We stood strong. You did not cross a picket line. Our family didn’t understand those who did. People said, ‘well, hardship…’ but how the hell did I last on £20 a week with two kids? We did it by organising ourselves within our communities. Not just me and my community, but thousands of women.

The realities weren’t easy: hiding behind the sofa from the rent man. Hearing an ice cream van outside and telling my daughter there was no money. She told my husband to jump up and down. She could hear the change in his pocket. There were big changes for our family.

All extras were removed from the trolley. Debt would catch up with us, but we weren’t the only people experiencing that suffering. We all got involved to whatever degree we could. We got stuck in. There was a clear turning point for me. In the August, Thatcher and MacGregor started describing us as ‘the enemy within’. I was no-one’s enemy. We just wanted to retain our loving communities. We knew how it all worked, what made it tick.

I was amazed at how militant I’d become. The excitement of meeting women who fought and thought like I did, shoulder to shoulder and side by side. The thing is, they couldn’t touch us, sack us – we didn’t work for them.

We spoke on platforms all over the place. Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire. The men’s story had been ‘mined’ to death: we were a new voice. The attention shifted to how families were organising themselves. We told the women’s story: we are in this together. When we started getting invitations to speak publicly, we began to ask for a bit more. My role was organising and fundraising.

We had some support group rules.

• Every penny raised went into the pot.
• Everyone got the same out of the pot. Whether they had kids or not.
• If you turned up for the Sunday afternoon meeting, you had to vote.

At the lodges, only members – the men – could vote. But suddenly, women’s opinions were sought.

We were the Neath, Dulais and South Wales Valleys Miners’ Support Group. We had ten food centres feeding anything from thirty to several hundred miners. But this soon turned into us feeding over a thousand families, at £8 a bag, but the time we were finished.

The whole thing transformed my life. When the gay and lesbian groups came out in support of the miners, they brought a whole new level of experience and expertise: they were people who’d had to fight for justice, they were used to it. And they helped us in incredible ways. They were good socialists and campaigners. They understood the system.The people who supported us from those groups then, are still my friends, today.

I often say: my strike was a good strike. I was frightened it was all going to go back to how it had been before, to be honest. But I went to University, built a name as a media commentator on S4C, because I spoke Welsh – it was the language of the men who worked underground. I went on to work in public affairs, worked for all sorts of companies including National Trust, Save the Children and Welsh Women’s Aid before eventually standing and getting elected into Parliament in 2005.

During the strike, I had the chance to talk to speakers, women on strike like me across the country. We all had mouths to feed. We all had to keep going. But my God, I met such wonderful people, women and men. Someone once asked Julia Gillard what her best advice was for her fourteen-year-old granddaughter. She replied: ‘Don’t let anybody turn your volume down.’ And that’s the thing. Chopsy women change the world.