People love anniversaries. Royal Jubilees, Cup victories, Elton John’s birthday. We’re Not Going Back was written ten years ago, to commemorate the miners’ strike on its 30^th anniversary, because some anniversaries (unlike the above) are worth remembering. For anyone too young to remember it, that year was pivotal. It spelled out the class divide, the money divide and the power divide.

I wrote We’re Not Going Back because Unite the Union had requested of Red Ladder some kind of theatrical commemoration. My first thought was, yes, I’d love to write a musical about the strike. But I don’t want it to be about miners and cops fighting on picket lines. I want it to be about the women who embodied the spirit and passion of the strike.

Easington Colliery. Back Alma Street. Returning home from work.

So myself and director Rod Dixon went and met with some of the women involved in the Women Against Pit Closures support groups. They were hilarious, fantastic, full of stories (some of which made their way into the play. Hint: the sheep).

Writing dialogue for female characters is always more fun than writing for male characters – women talk to each other, they get down to brass tacks a lot quicker than men. In that sense this play was a joy to write. And the music – working with Beccy and the cast was a privilege ten years ago and is a privilege today. Such amazing voices, and such a sisterly bond between them all. I’m not ashamed to say that when they sing ‘What Price Coal?’ it still makes me cry. And then again, they’re just as likely to make me laugh at a joke I’ve heard a hundred times.

Tower Street. Jossie Smith, retired and disabled miner arrested outside his home, with his wife. February 1985

It wasn’t all fun. How the miners were treated by the government, the press, even by the Labour Party, was a shocking and depressing story to have to re-tell. This made it all the more important to write – the arts has a duty to paint pictures of our collective history much more accurately than academic history books or TV news.

School holidays. Easington Colliery Club

What is significant in this 2024 version of We’re Not Going Back is that, as we talked about at the first rehearsal, the struggle for justice for the miners arrested and beaten at Orgreave is still continuing today, forty years on, as the Orgreave Truth & Justice Campaign. I hope that this play can honour that ongoing campaign, and the history of such a defiant moment, 40 years on.

All photos: Keith Pattison, as featured in his book ‘No Redemption The 1984-85 Miners Strike in the Durham Coalfield Easington Colliery

Main photo: The 1984-85 Miner’s Strike in the Durham Coalfield. Easington Colliery Club. Marilyn Johnson serving lunch during the school holidays.

Book tickets for ‘We’re Not Going Back’ here!