Here in Dumfries and Galloway we are very
fortunate to have a local cinema as diverse as the Robert Burns Centre Film
Theatre, a cinema that features such a variety of cinematic treats and are never
afraid to screen feature films or documentaries that the more conservative
movie goer might find a little contentious, Burning Issues (2004) is
one such film.
Sponsored
by the Dumfries Trades Union Council and the RBCFT and introduced by Ian Gasse who
explained that a community theatre company based in Birmingham, England called
Banner Theatre originally made the film to mark the 20th anniversary
of the 1984 miner struggle. Founded in 1974 it is the
only theatres company that tour consistently to Britain’s trade unionists. The
company has performed at union events, pubs, clubs, theatres, festivals and
rallies over the past 40 years. It pioneered and continues to use documentary
theatre techniques. Productions include recorded interview material, theatre,
song, music, video and slides. Above all, what makes the company unique is its
use of ordinary working class people’s words captured by camera. A founder
member of the company was former BBC radio producer Charles Parker, who with
Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, created the radio ballads, award-winning musical
documentaries broadcast by the BBC in the 1960s. These have been a major
influence on Banner’s work and the development of the ‘video ballad’.
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| Banner Theatre perform their video ballad. |
Burning
Issues was
being shown at the RBCFT to mark the 30th anniversary of the start
of the 1984/5 Miners Strike, the most significant industrial dispute of the
late twentieth century. The defeat of the miners led to the rundown of the
mining industry and the impoverishment of many mining communities. The film is
a celebration of the solidarity, resourcefulness and resistance of mining
communities throughout the strike, which lasted for more than a year, and
allows miners and their families to speak for themselves twenty years on from
the strike and to reflect on what it has subsequently meant to them and their
communities. Ian also went on to explain that Banner had supported the miners
throughout the strike.
 |
| Miners wives state their case. |
The film itself consisted of songs sung on a
stage in front of an audiences with a screen at the rear showing archive
footage of the miners strike and interviews in 2004 with people that were
involved in the strike, both men and women including Anne Scargill who was at
the time of the strike the wife of the mine workers leader Arthur Scargill. The
1984 – 1985 strike was about keeping the pits open and securing the 1000’s of
jobs of men that worked in the mining industry and it was NUM leader who
claimed that it was Thatcher and her Tory government’s long-term strategy to
destroy the industry by closing the pits. The government denied this but
subsequently Scargill has been proved right.
 |
| State brutality against an honest working man! |
Scottish
TUC Deputy General Secretary Dave Moxham led a post screening discussion with
the packed audience to discuss the modern day repercussions from this historic
working class action. I think it must be agreed that the defeat of the miners
in 1985 was the beginning of the end of the Unions, as we knew them and
subsequently led to today’s dishonest and abysmal treatment of ordinary hard
working people by the coalition government.
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