For the women involved, the miners' strike brought an enduring sense of self-worth and community spirit. Women's Editor Christen Pears reports.

HEATHER Wood stood in the doorway, surveying the faces around the table. She had missed the first part of the meeting - the union didn't allow women in - but now the men were asking her to join them. She paused, her foot hovering over the threshold. "Are you sure?" she asked. "Because after that, there will be no going back."

And there was no going back. Like so many others during the miners' strike, the women of Easington Colliery were about to discover their potential. "I don't think the men realised the power we would have," says Heather.

The police called them Scargill's slags. Arthur Scargill himself said he wanted his wife back, the wife he used to know. Miners' wives spent their days at rallies, on picket duty and running soup kitchens, but when the strike ended in 1985, there was an expectation they would down their placards and get back to their kitchens.

But the strike had changed many of the women, those like Ann Lilburn, a miner's wife, miner's daughter, and the mother of two young children at Whittle Colliery in Northumberland. Until miners walked out, she had never spoken at a village hall, let alone a major meeting but as the strike progressed, she became increasingly involved in campaigning, and was eventually elected chairman of the national organisation Women Against Pit Closures.

The North-East has its fair share of women like Ann. Juliana Heron, Mayor of Sunderland City Council, was drawn into politics during the strike. "If someone had told me 20 years ago that I would end up being mayor, I would have told them not to be daft," she says. Lynn Camsell, chairman of Northumberland County Council's Labour Group, had a similar experience. She says she didn't know the meaning of the word 'political' until 1984 when she couldn't afford to buy her children shoes.

Heather Wood was already political and she galvanised others. The daughter of a miner and a lifelong socialist, she quickly realised the strike was going to be a long one and wrote to all the women of Easington, asking for their help. She became figurehead for the campaign, working tirelessly to raise money and provide food for the striking miners.

"I believed in it," she says. " I love my community, I really love it but it was hard. I went home and cried every night because there were so many emotions. It would have been easy to fall apart but everyone kept everyone else going. We were friends and sisters. We still are, even 20 years on."

At first, she says, the women were reluctant to talk about politics but, as the strike dragged on, they started to take an interest, watching news bulletins, discussing events and eventually becoming active themselves.

"It was wonderful to watch. I remember one woman. She was so quiet normally but she stood up at a meeting in Middlesbrough. All she said was, 'My husband is on strike, we have two children and no money. Can you help?'. It gave her so much confidence, and it was the same with a lot of people."

Dr Carol Stephenson, senior lecturer in the sociology of inequality at Northumbria University, is carrying out research into the impact of the strike on women. Working with colleague Professor Monica Shaw, she has carried out in-depth interviews with some of the women involved in the strike.

She says: "Some of them used the strike as rocket fuel. They almost changed their lives out of all proportion. Some went into politics, others into careers in teaching or social work. Other women have not been as visible but they continue to be involved in their communities, even if it's just running the local scout troop."

Feminists were quick to claim the strike for their own, viewing it as a struggle for female empowerment, but Dr Stephenson disagrees. "These women weren't fighting for themselves, they were fighting for their families and their communities. Their politics haven't changed since then, their view of that period of time hasn't changed and it's interesting that all of the women I've spoken to and read about used their experiences not for themselves but for the collective."

Most of the women already had the skills that would be invaluable during the strike, skills they used in their home life such as organisation, caring, planning and cooking. During the strike, they brought them from the private into the public sphere, running soup kitchens, organising fund-raising.

In Easington Colliery, Heather recruited her mother, Myrtle Macpherson, a recently-retired school dinner lady, to help run the soup kitchen. With two boilers and a cooker, she and around 20 other women provided hot meals for the miners five days a week. They put together food parcels, organised raffles and went on marches and rallies. When the men began to flag, they offered support and encouragement.

"It was a very, very hard time but we were all together and that sense of being together was marvellous. Everyone did what they could and for all it was so hard, I would do it again if I had to," says Myrtle. The end of the strike was an anticlimax for the miners; they went back to work but they had lost the battle. For the women, it was a different story, with the strike marking the beginning of a new era. Even those who went back to looking after their families had been changed by the experience.

Anne Suddick was a secretary for the NUM and went on to become the co-ordinator of the Northumberland and Durham Miners' support group. She says: "Nothing could have changed me the way that year did and I think it was the same for everyone. Lots of them became politically active or went into higher education. But the biggest change was in attitude. We stopped taking things at face value any more, started questioning things and we realised that we had a contribution to make."

When the miners drifted back to work in 1985, the fight to save the pits started in earnest and once again, it was women who were at the forefront. Myrtle spent months camping out with other campaigners in a caravan on a cliff near the Vane Tempest pit in Seaham. "We had seen what we could during the strike and this was the next step," she says.

When the mines did eventually close, the men lost their jobs and, for the first time, many found themselves relying on their wives. "It was easier for women to find work then and they had the confidence to do it. The men stayed at home and looked after the children. Everything had been turned upside down but although it was hard, I don't think the men resented the women. At the end of the day, everyone wanted the same thing," says Myrtle.

Twenty years after the strike, Easington Colliery has changed almost beyond recognition. All that remains of the mine is the old pit cage, towering above the landscape. The rows of old colliery houses are being torn down, while new estates spring up. With people commuting to work, the village is no longer the tight-knit community it once was. But the sense of community and spirit of friendship that was forged during the strike is still strong among the women.

A reunion is planned for next month, Heather has brought out all the old photographs and scrapbooks she kept from the strike and she and Myrtle are looking forward to reminiscing with their friends.

"All I can say is, 'Thank God I was involved'," says Heather. "What we went through was awful but we came out the other side different people and we wouldn't have it any other way".

NEXT MONDAY

'I thought we were going to die'

How the police braved the picket lines.