posted on 03 Jul 2025

The 1984-5 Miners’ Strike in fiction : the industrial dispute as social and political myth

This article explores the way in which novels that feature trade unions and trade unionism are used by their authors to dramatise what they see as a paradigm shift in British political and social thinking. In these books the specific details of the trade dispute are not the centre of interest because the real focus of attention is on the wider set of social and political schisms or theatres of ideological conflict that lie behind the headline issues of an industrial dispute.

 In this case, three novels (GB84 , Born Under Punches and Dark Edge), inspired by the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike in the UK, are explored with a view to examining the role fiction has had in helping to establish a dominant discourse about the way the strike was conducted, its effect on the communities directly involved and its wider social and political impact.

You can read the full text written by Terry Potter by clicking on the link below:

The_1984.pdf