How Keith Pattison got his photographs from the Miners' Strike

Powerful images capturing the struggle of villagers fighting for their livelihoods 40 years ago just ‘fell through the lens’, according to the photographer who shot them.

Keith Pattison spent eight months living with striking pitmen near the colliery in Easington and was taken under their wing in as police in riot gear ‘flooded’ the village.

Warned he could be arrested, Keith, 33 at the time, stood firm while snatching unique photographs of the intimidation of residents through heavy-handed policing.

An officer grabs a man around the neck (Image: Keith Pattison)

A striking miner arrested by police (Image: Keith Pattison)

Police hold back a wall of men on the picket line (Image: Contributor)Keith said: “It was very tense, very ugly and very tiring.

“I was quite aghast at what was happening and pictures just fell through the lens wherever I pointed.

“Suddenly there would be riot police at the front door. Then there is a woman at the window with a newborn baby.

“That might have been there for only about 15 seconds but as a photographer you are driven to go for it, and so I went for it.”

Keith, who had been a jobbing photographer in Sunderland, with an arts company got involved with the miners as the bitter industrial dispute rumbled on.

It started on March 6, 1984, to prevent further pit closures, but in July, after violence on picket lines began to escalate, it seemed there was no end in sight.

The colliery in the background with police in the village (Image: Contributor)

Police in riot gear in Easington (Image: Keith Pattison)

An officer addresses the striking men (Image: Contributor)Due to the images he was capturing, and the intimidating atmosphere at times, Keith was concerned his camera film might be taken by the authorities.

He said: “I would rattle off three shots but there was a paranoia about police confiscating film from cameras.

“Anecdotally, these things rolled around and I have no idea whether it was true or not.

“But I decided then that once I had used a roll of film I would go and keep it safe at the place I was staying.”

Keith, who was originally from Eaglescliffe but now lives near Berwick, said the police did him a favour by threatening him with arrest while he was shooting.

He said: “A lot of local photographers tended to group at one corner, and I am not mocking them, but I decided I was going to get a view from where the pickets were standing.

“There were hundreds of men behind me. Suddenly the police came and spied on me, warned me and threatened me with arrest.

“It is the best favour they could have done because suddenly I had ‘street cred’ and the guys put a metaphorical arm around my shoulder and said: ‘We’ll look after you Keith, you are our photographer’.

“For all you try to tread an impartial line, as a photographer you have to stand somewhere and say: This is what I am thinking’.”

Keith said, other than Channel 4 news, most of the mainstream media were toeing the Government line and were not reflecting the experiences of people who lived in mining communities.

He said: “The police were lined up with riot shields and suddenly these pictures were thrown at you.

"Everywhere you looked. It was extraordinary. It was things I had never imagined. It was a privilege to be there.”

It is hard to imagine how difficult it was in those days, even for local newspapers, to get images in print, compared to today when pictures can be taken from a scene and sent back to a newsroom and published online in seconds.

Technological advancements with telecommunications and the rise of social media means the Miners’ Strike would have been portrayed differently if it happened today when everyone has a video camera in their pocket.

Miners looking for loose coal to heat their homes (Image: Contributor)

Opposing walls of pickets and police (Image: Contributor)

A villager makes his feelings known (Image: Keith Pattison)Get more from The Northern Echo and stay informed with subscription now available on special offer for two months for just £2. Click here 

Keith said: “You have to remember it was a time when there was no internet, there was no other way I could send a picture easily.

“To send a picture I had to go into a dark room, make a print, put it in an envelope and put it in the post.

“It was like the Industrial Revolution when that changed but before then it was really difficult.

“The other thing to bear in mind is that photographic reproduction was really difficult and expensive.

"The quality was really poor in newsprint.

“Communities were hidebound by this isolation of being portrayed in the national media as these violent hotbeds.

“It did not feel as though their voice was being heard.”

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Dot Smith pleads with police after her husband is arrested (Image: Contributor)As well as the skirmishes in the village and the dystopian images of police marching through the streets, Keith also captured the faces of everyday folk, not least the women who pulled together to feed their families and to give the men the stomach to continue the strike.

His pictures, shot in black and white, are evocative and helped humanise the people who were fighting to preserve their livelihoods in the face of Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies and a militarised national police force.

Keith Pattison (Image: Andy Martin)Keith collaborated with writer David Pearce (Red Riding, The Damned) on their 2010 book, No Redemption, and the pictures form the basis of an exhibition at Easington Social Welfare Centre on show this week.

Some of the most dramatic pictures came in late August 1984, when Paul Wilkinson, a 28-year-old strike breaker arrived at the pit for work.

The power loader who had transferred to Easington Colliery from Kelloe a few months earlier was escorted by police but when the pickets learned this there was a riot with cars overturned and set on fire.

Officers were drafted in from around the country and Easington became a village under siege.

Police on the streets of Easington (Image: Keith Pattison)Keith said: “Every day more police arrived.

“There was something I had not seen before at the time and that was police in riot helmets.

“I thought: ‘Wow, what's happening here? Am I looking through my camera at a little bit of history?”

Arthur Scargill signs one of Keith's photographs as he watches on from the right (Image: Contributor)

Scroll through our gallery at the top of the article to see some of Keith's photographs