Pride: The Unlikely Story of the True Heroes of the Miner's Strike

by Tim Tate, LGSM

In 1984, a small group of metropolitan homosexual men and lesbian women stepped away from the vibrant culture and hedonism of London's defiant gay scene to befriend and support the beleaguered villages of a very traditional mining community in the remote valleys of South Wales.

They did so in the midst of the 1984 miners' strike - the most bitter and divisive dispute for more than half a century, and in one of the most turbulent periods in modern British history.

In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher's hardcore social and fiscal policies devastated Britain's traditional industries, and at the same time, AIDS began to claim lives across the nation. At the very height of this perfect storm, as the government and police battled 'the enemy within' in communities across the land and newspapers whipped up fear of the gay 'perverts' who were supposedly responsible for inflicting this lethal new pestilence upon the entire population, two groups who ostensibly had nothing in common - miners and homosexuals - unexpectedly made a stand together and forged a lasting friendship.

It was an alliance which helped keep an entire valley clothed and fed during the darkest months of the strike. And it led directly to a long-overdue acceptance by trades unions and the Labour Party that homosexual equality was a cause to be championed.

Pride tells the inspiring true story of how two very different communities - each struggling to overcome its own bitter internal arguments and long-established fault lines, as well as facing the power of a hostile government and press found common cause against overwhelming odds. And how this one simple but unlikely act of friendship would, in time, help change life in Britain - forever.

Genres: Nonfiction, LGBT, History, Queer, Politics, Historical, Gay

265 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 10, 2017

About the author

Tim Tate is a multiple award-winning British documentary film-maker and bestselling author.

His films - mostly investigative, always campaigning - have been honoured by Amnesty International, the Royal Television Society, UNESCO, The Association for International Broadcasting, The International Documentary Association, the New York Festivals and the US National Academy of Cable Programming. He often speaks at international conferences and university seminars.

He is also the author of fifteen published non-fiction books. These include the best-selling "Slave Girl" which told the true story of a young British woman sex-trafficked to Amsterdam; "Girls With Balls" which uncovered the secret history of women's football; "Hitler's Forgotten Children", which tells the extraordinary and harrowing story of a woman who was part of the Nazi Lebensborn programme to create an Aryan master race; and "Yorkshire Ripper - The Secret Murders" which reveals long-suppressed evidence showing that Peter Sutcliffe killed 23 more victims.

His 2017, "Pride", tells the extraordinary true story behind the hit movie of the same name. In 1984,in the depths of the bitterly-fought miners' strike, a group of very cosmopolitan London gay men and women made common cause with the very traditional communities of a remote south Wales valley - and helped keep its mining families alive at at a time when the British government was trying to starve them into submission.

His latest book - The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: Crime, Conspiracy and Cover-Up (Thistle Publishing) is the result of 25 years investigation by Tim and his co-author, former CNN journalist Brad Johnson. It presents detailed forensic, ballistic and eyewitness testimony showing that the convicted assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, could not have shot Kennedy. It reveals that Los Angeles Police disregarded and then suppressed clear evidence of a conspiracy behind the assassination and makes a compelling case for a new official inquiry.

Reviews

[Mike Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are very pleased with Tim Tate's curation of our story about Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM). From the outset Tim was clear that he didn't believe he could / should write our story but rather interview the individuals involved and curate what we said. He has done a brilliant job of this. His narrative thread is essential to put our words into political, social and historical contexts. I have heard some people say that they find it strange that a book should follow a movie but in this case the movie was based on real life people, events and the first archive which we kept, which is now at the Peoples' History Museum, Manchester, UK. In 2022 a second archive was deposited at the Bishopsgate Institute, London.
One correction to the title above. LGSM were NOT the true heroes of the Miners' Strike, the heroes were the striking miners and their communities. LGSM, alongside millions of others, were proud supporters of their cause. And still are. It ain't over yet!
If you want further information about LGSM find us on Twitter: @LGSMpride

[Kylie🐾 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why can I say I am completely and utterly amazed. This book is extremely remarkable and beautifully written. I love reading books based on real life because I get that sense of what happened and I get to learn a lot more about history, history that happened way before my time.
I mean I’ve seen movies like holding the man, pride and the normal heart. It’s sad, really really sad but informative nonetheless.

I highly recommend this book.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I cry every time I watch the movie. I don't know how it's taken me so long to discover this oral history. Many of the principal characters give their own accounts of events (Mike Jackson especially on the LGSM side, also Jonathan Blake, Gethin Roberts, Stephanie Chambers, and Dai Donovan and Sian James from the striking miners). Some of the background details are fascinating, the nuances of union politics, the horrific long-term strategy and strong-arm tactics of the Tory government.

And now I get why one of the clubbers in the London fundraiser concert in the movie was wearing a Martha Scargill shirt.

The afterword was written in 2016, the year of Brexit and Trump's ascendancy. A sobering time, but the struggles go on today. When are we going to learn the lessons from the LGSM project?

[Jassmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

The important thing we had learned was that, if we were being vilified, if we were being denigrated and if the State was calling us ‘the enemy within’, what did that say about all these other people who, we’d been told for years, were also the enemy within? Perhaps they were just like us. Perhaps they were being unfairly treated. Perhaps they were being lied about. And our perception changed dramatically. (Sîan James)

I should probably start this review with saying that this book is a non-identical twin of the movie Pride (2014). I saw that movie, loved that movie and so logically I wanted to learn more about the events and people it described. Hence, reading this book. And... this book isn't completely what I expected. That's not necessarily bad, it's definitely a good, interesting and highly educational piece. But at the same time it sometimes felt alienating (that's partly me though, I'll get to it) and unreflective of some of the issues.

1. This book is functionally an oral history. It's fully based on what people who were actually there say about what happened with occasional quotations about what the media of the times said. This creates an incredibly strong narrative and a feeling, like YOU as a reader are actually experiencing it. I only read one other book that did this - Ten den - 17. listopad 1989 which is (un)surprisingly also about a civil protest - and it certainly is a very powerful tool.

Unfortunately, it also creates some blind spots. Mainly, it's very focused on the "flow of history" and kind of puts the actual persons in back rows. That isn't necessarily a bad thing - a big figure history is definitely outdated - but at the same time there were some big personalities here and they are almost completely missing from the narrative - because they are already dead... Namely Mark Ashton and Hefina Headon.

But the same thing could be said for the people who were interviewed. They almost seem like vessels of history, we get to learn a few personal bits about them, but... they are also very much missing. The bond between the gays and the miners is in the focus, but we almost don't get to see the bonds between the members of LGSM group... (Like... this is a superficial example, but in the movie Jonathan and Gethin are very clearly partners, but after reading the book, I have no clue if this is actually true or if it was there so just some of the themes could be brought up.)

It was legal to be gay, but it was illegal to ask. It was the same as prostitution: you could do it but you weren't allowed to ask anyone to do it - that was soliciting for an immoral purpose. You had to somehow come together spontaneously to be allowed to do it - provided there were only two of you and it was in private. And private meant in a locked room inside a house with no other person there.

2. This is a somewhat adjacent issue... The whole book starts with introducing the speakers - which... is a little boring to be honest. I didn't really remember the names from the movie so I didn't have the "faces" to attach to it. (Clearly, it would be the actor's faces, but... you know...) So there was this shopping list of people that sometimes shared an interesting anecdote, but... it was very clear from their answers that they were given the same questions and the whole thing became a little monothematic. The good thing about this was that this highlighted how similar and yet different all those people (gays and miners alike) are. So in that, I understand the choice, but... I wouldn't be surprised if it made some people put the book down. There is also no attempt to introduce the people that can no longer speak for themself (aka Mark and Hefina, but... there is a lot of less obvious blank spaces too).

And as I already said in the previous part, the bonds between people are often very unapparent. It took me 3/4 of the book to realise that Jayne Francis-Headon was Hefina's daughter... and you know, maybe I'm dense, but she of course talks about her mother as "mum" and not Hefina...

In his wisdom, Arthur Scargill divided the world up and we in South Wales were given Ireland as the place to raise funds. Yorkshire and Kent – the ‘favourite’ coalfields – were given the whole of North America and London. (Hywel Francis)

3. I think this all goes back to the fact that Tim Tate - who isn't as much the author of this book as an editor (I don't mean this as an insult, he did a great job assembling the book together, he just didn't write that much words in it) - isn't gay or miner. And you can see the effort for this to be as much in the "own voices" as it can be - which means there is very little commentary... there are also no photographs or additional material (aside from the few article excerpts...). Which... you know, I think it's a shame. I absolutely support the agency this gave to the speakers, but I would like if it worked a little better with the narrative especially in the beginning.

I perfectly understood the split. Nobody within LGSM was interested in having a diverse group. We had flaming rows about this. For me, it was just blindingly obvious, because there were no black people in LGSM and no women.
And it struck me as the same principle. I don’t think that the leadership of LGSM – because of their Leninism – saw this as important. (Paul Canning)

4. What kind of hit me though... was the diversity question. Or the lack of it... From the book, it's very clear that LGSM was a male dominated space. And the sad part is that most of the guys don't see this as a problem even when talking about it NOW. (Paul Canning - above - seems to be the exception from this.) This isn't really surprising - I would say given a time, but... you know, it's just never surprising... What's really interesting is that it was kind of opposite with the miner parts of the book, where the women take the lead (but it's also very logical when one reads the book and sees the mechanisms).

But what is the dark side of this book/story that goes mostly unaddressed is the separatism. I mean this group is called Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners and in their rules it says you have to be lesbian or gay to join the group... no bisexuals, no transgender people... And I understand that was how it was in the days... that biphobia and transphobia were rampant even among LGBTQ+ people, but they are telling the story NOW (or well, Idk when the interviews were held - the movie is 2014 but the book is 2017, so... do your math if you feel like it). And the language they use mostly excludes the queer folks who aren't gay or lesbian. And I don't mean... of course that makes sense when they are talking about the group of actual people that are only gay and lesbian, but... this is also book about queer rights in general and they are missing there too. The funny thing about this is that the media mention bi and trans folks (in a hateful way of course), while the people don't... (There is one mention of the bisexuals by one of the lesbians - I think it was Wendy - in relation to the separatism, but that's it...)

You know... it just stung a little bit... (but I'm of course biased in this...)

On the way down, there had been a debate about whether, if you were vegetarian, it was OK to say to a miner giving you his last tin of corned beef that you couldn’t eat it because you were vegetarian. (Ray Goodspeed)

Now, I don't want to make it seem like I'm bashing this book. It's a good book and I enjoyed it greatly. It's just that BECAUSE I liked it so much, those things bothered me so much more...

One of the things I absolutely loved was how the vegetarianism was a bigger deal-breaker than the queerness. Honestly, it was hilarious in the movie and I was so glad to see that this was actually very much based on the truth XD

I also learned A LOT. This book does a great job of providing the set up and context for the conflict that's at its centre - so I learned about a lot of anti-gay legislative, British social politics in 20th century and Margaret Thatcher's rule - which, I'm honestly (a little) ashamed to admit, I don't know a lot about.

Overall, I'm very glad I read this. There are things that - in my humble opinion - would have made this book even better, but... it was highly enlightening as it is. Definitely would recommend if this is a theme you are interested in, but... you know, it isn't a "must" XD Go see the movie though, it's delightful!

[Cathal Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last book of 2017 woop woop!
It's hard to believe that I only watched Pride for the first time earlier this year. I've since watched it over a dozen times and I can honestly say no story has changed me as much as this one has. It gave me courage and conviction to be who I am and to fight for it.
The only reason the book of this historical story lost a star is because I wasn't totally sold on the style, and I felt it missed out on some depth because of it. I loved reading the words of the actual people involved (particularly Mike Jackson) but I could've done with more from the self-appointed narrator.
But I hardly care. I love the story, the movie, LGSM and everyone and everything to do with it and I genuinely screamed when I discovered this book had been published.

[Aline · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You have worn our badge, 'Coal not Dole', and you know what harassment means, as we do. Now we will pin your badge on us; we will support you."

Turns out that even in book form, the scene where the miners join the 1985 Pride march still makes me cry buckets and buckets. This story is just so immensely powerful and heart-warming. It means solidarity and unity, one struggle, one fight, and I will always carry it with me, everywhere I go in life.

[galpalkirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

As incredibly inspiring as the movie.

[Zoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pride is one of my favourite films, so I was excited to see my library had a copy of this in stock.

The book has a very 'oral history' feel, with minimal content not directly from the members of LGSM and the Welsh miners, which was a deliberate (and good) choice on the writer's part to foreground the direct lived experiences. As someone who loves the film, it was particularly interesting to read the less 'cinematic' origins of many of the scenes in the film, as well as all the context about both the miners' strike and the experiences of the gay community in Britain at the time of the strike. I was broadly familiar with both beforehand, but the in-depth discussion of the political context of the strike was particularly interesting.

[anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

You’ve worn our badge and, when the time comes, we’ll wear yours with pride.

I’ll treasure this story forever <3

[cass · Rating 5 out of 5]

“This book was researched and written in one of the most turbulent twelve months in living memory. The year 2016.”

“This year has, more than most, then, brought home the need to heed and remember our history. And while that history is dominated by the vicious, cynical and short-term politics which led to the 1984–85 miners’ strike, it also includes the generosity and selflessness of those who fought so hard to protect its victims.”

“And I hope that the telling of them may lead to a resurgence of the courage, kindness and solidarity with which each of these ostensibly very different communities sustained the other.
Because now, more than ever, we need them.”

“We led the march from the middle.”

This book being written in 2016 says it all. I first heard of and fell in love with this movie during the height of the pandemic and now reading this during the suffocating summer of 2024…this story and history will always be everything to me.

“You’ve worn our badge and, when the time comes, we’ll wear yours with pride.”
🤍🌈

[kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You’ve worn our badge and, when the time comes, we'll wear yours with pride." what a story what a story

[Ygraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

i have, at least at the moment, v little platform fr activism. i am unemployed & living with my parents, & therefore have no money to donate to organisations i believe in & champion. as of the past few months, i live in a rural industrial town in the north west, which is slightly less isolated than the village i grew up in, but is still worlds away from london & manchester in terms of organised protest & accessible info abt activist groups. i haven't been able to follow through on my plans to get involved as a volunteer w the local refugee community centre due to the pandemic. i've let this sense of directionlessness make me helpless, bc the govt's inhumanity & cruelty has only increased over the past few months, is only ever increasing, & w the best intentions in the world i've done what feels like nothing.

but i've been thinking more & more abt teaching, & specifically my experience of the education system. there are gaps i was instinctually aware of, bc they alienated me specifically, & there are gaps i was made aware of, over time & by listening to other alienated voices. i felt frustrated, at the time, by how limited & how limiting the curriculum felt. i feel all the more frustrated now that i recognise that the entire seven-year high school & sixth form experience failed to give me most of the tools i needed to understand the world, my place in it, what needs to change & how to change it, and instead gave me histories and ideologies that at best, i rejected on the spot & at worst, i'm still unlearning. i'm still looking for the tools i need. i picked up a couple in uni, from teachers & mentors that i'll forever be grateful to, but even there there were gaps huge enough to exclude whole groups, biases that were never acknowledged, obvious systemic racism within faculties and teaching material. i'm trying to figure shit out on my own; i'm trying to learn from people who've done & are doing that work around me.

which i suppose is the point of this -- i'm starting a reading group w my little brothers. it's something i can do at home, something i don't need money or ability to travel to do every month, something that'll help me better understand my own "heart politics" and make me better able to explain and discuss with people who're still in mainstream education ! i want to see their learning supplemented with material i wish i'd had access to, and someone friendly to talk to abt it with ! i want them to learn with me, so that wherever they go next they can take with them more of a framework of ideas and awareness than i had coming out of secondary !

so this is the first book in that project, which we agreed on after watching pride together last month. if i'd had the idea a couple of days later, we'd have started with a book on race & anti-racist action -- as it is, that'll be the focus of the second half of this month. but pride, as an informal introduction to thatcher, strike action, the aids crisis, grassroots organising & solidarity, feels like an important way of both marking pride as political, the ancestor of today's lesbians and gays support the migrants, and helping to shape and contextualise our understanding of how the government is using & has used the press and police to violent, dehumanising & silencing ends.

anyway, none of this is really a review: my actual review is that this is a brilliant companion to a film that i think v movingly communicates the nature & practice of solidarity. what is flattened out or dramatised in the film can be clarified, expanded & complicated by the accounts of members of lgsm & the south wales mining families, what is galvanising in the film is doubly so in the words of the people who fought side by side fr each other's right to exist, to be seen and heard.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pride is one of my favourite films, so I was excited to read more about the history behind the film. The book is laid out in an interview style with small sections from people involved on both sides (the Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners group and the Welsh miners and their families). Interspersing the accounts are passages on historical background, which helps the book remain grounded in the time. The strike in 1984/5 is a dark social and economic period in UK 20th century history. I never understood fully the extent at which the government went to surpress and belittle the needs and struggles of the miners. It was also a truly disgraceful period for LGBT+ rights and discrimination. However, the story of two very different communities coming together and providing help and support to each other is an amazing story. The book also goes further in time that the film does, which is interesting and highlighted many ways of how LGSM still lives on.

A brilliant read, a real recommend, favourite book of the year so far!

[Rai Beattie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really awesome companion to the brilliant film - it's an oral history of LGSM and the Welsh village it twined with. It was so great to hear the story in the voices of the people who lived it. And it made me cry just as hard as the film did!! Highly recommended!!!

[Siân · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully readable back filling more in-depth information to the Pride movie. Nice to hear from the people directly involved. Highly recommend

[Zak F · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find it so mind blowing that this isn’t taught in History lessons across South Wales. What an eye opening book. I learnt so much about my own community, my countries history and the allyship between two communities.

[Jelena Gley · Rating 4 out of 5]

after rewatching the film for like the millionth time I really really really really really really REALLY want this book and get even more background information

[Eleri · Rating 5 out of 5]

First off, I love the film 'Pride' and that is what drew me to this book initially. Being from South Wales and the daughter of a strong trade unionist I knew a lot about the Miners' Strike of 1984-1985 but this story was new to me. This true story of the coming together of two such diverse groups as miners and lesbians and gay men is heartwarming and the long-term effects flabbergasting.

Stylistically, I love the way that the story is told through the words of the people who were involved, with the author chipping in to furnish us with facts and figures and move the discussion along. We learn about the history of mining disputes in the UK and the immense amount of people employed in the industry. I have been down several mines in various areas and could not have coped with the horrific conditions; the men that did though had no choice, because there were few other jobs available to them and so down the pits they went, from such young ages, to support their families and to provide the rest of the country with fuel. We learn as well about the historic struggle for gay rights, and the out-and-out hostility that homosexuals faced right into the nineteen eighties and nineties. The interesting parallels that exist between the two groups are emphasised; both were marginalised and attacked by various conservative governments, and, more worryingly, by the press.

The words we read in 'Pride' are honest, and often hard-hitting. For example I knew that the police would use entrapment methods in order to arrest homosexuals, but was totally unaware of the lengths that the laws reached; thankfully we live in more enlightened times but that is surely only down to the struggle of the likes of people in this book.

I cried more than once whilst reading this book; it was certainly an emotional roller-coaster. Sometimes the tears were out of frustration and anger that a government could do what they did, to the miners and to the gay community. At other times I teared-up with sadness at the hopelessness of the situation. Mostly the tears were tears of joy and pride at the unquestioning solidarity and humanity that these two groups showed to each other. If Margaret Thatcher showed us the worst of humanity then surely the likes of Mark Ashton and Dai Donovan demonstrated the best, being people we should all aspire to be.

I think Pride is an important book, particularly in the current political climate where groups are being marginalised and attacked by various factions. We can't underestimate man's inhumanity to man and we can't underestimate the lengths that our government will go to in order to subjugate its people, and to silence them on the major issues. This is a history that we do not teach our children, but we definitely should and I would be in favour of putting this book on school reading lists.

The overriding theme of this book is solidarity and the things that can be achieved when people find a common bond and work together for the greater good; who could possibly argue with that?

If you've enjoyed the film then you should definitely read the book. If you haven't seen the book then you should definitely read the book. If you were a fan of Thatcher then you should definitely read the book. If you were anti-Thatcher then you should definitely read the book. Basically, everyone should read the book. You might not like everything you read, or agree with what the people inside it say, but you might just learn something.

[Andrea Hurt · Rating 4 out of 5]

When you love something so much it can be nerve wracking to see the inner workings. The movie Pride is one of my all time favourites and I was a little concerned that the book would reveal differences that would change my perception. I'm pleased to report it added more depth to the story.

Based on interviews with both LGSM and the mining community, the story is told in their own words with some additional information from Tim Tate. The picture of Tory Britain in the 70s and 80s is hard to read. The explanation of the miners strike and what it meant to communities and 'community' as a concept is invaluable. Similarly, the story of how gays and lesbians were treated in this period, and the hatred doled out at the beginning of the AIDS virus is sickening.

Although the differences to the movie are clear (characters relationships and some of the narrative) reading how these two unlikely groups benefited from mutual support, open minds and a determined political agenda actually brought a tear to my eye a number of times.

I wish there had been more material to draw upon regarding Mark Ashton, but we see him through others. The book goes beyond the movie and discusses how the re-emergence of this story on the big screen impacted the main players decades after the strike ended. It was also amazing to hear how the movie has inspired other LGS groups worldwide. Proving that community can be found through grass roots politics.

If you loved the movie and want to know more about the human experiences during the time - read this book. Warning - you'll fall in love with Dai Donovan even more.

[Robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Discounted | An excellent oral history of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (during the 1984-85 strike) | The choice to leave this almost entirely in the words of the people who experienced it was a good one, but the structure of the introductory chapter left a bit to be desired. So many people are introduced with just their own short summarized bios, one after another, that I found it difficult later to remember who was part of which group. Mostly the Welsh names were from the Valley, but there were Welsh members of LGSM and residents of the Valley with less obviously Welsh names, so that wasn't foolproof. I loved the movie when I saw it a few years back, and I've read a lot about the strike, so the story wasn't new to me, but still very worth the read, both to expand my understanding and because it really emphasizes some of the differences between the 80s in the US and the UK. People in the States weren't casually contacting the Secretary of their local Communist Party to help with outreach. These sorts of seemingly small asides help with the background of the history.
It did bug me that the diacritic in Siân James' name was wrong throughout. I doublechecked, and she does spell her name with the usual â, not î.

[Saimi Korhonen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book by Tim Tate (and LGSM aka Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners) tells, as the title suggests, the story of LGSM and how they worked together with the Welsh mining valleys and communities during the 1984 miners' strike. It is a story about solidarity, endurance, breaking down barriers and the importance of activism. Reading these people tell their stories (Tate allowed the people to tell their stories themselves in their own words and he just wrote them down and added some context and historical facts to support the interview passages) was inspiring and reminded me of what people are capable of if we only work together and learn to see past our differences. This is an amazing true story and it deserves to be remembered.

If you loved the film, read this. If you want to learn more about this era of the gay rights movement, read this book. Or if you just want to be inspired and learn about a point in history that has been largely forgotten but helped - literally - to change british history and political landscape, read this book!

[Iselin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for anyone, really. But especially for socialists and LGBT+ people. (Or watch the movie. Pride (2014).) A tale of unlikely allyship between miners and gay people in the face of Margaret (Fucking) Thatcher! A beautiful true story of what can be achieved when working together to battle a huge enemy.

"What I do know is that with LGSM, I met people who had genuinely been suffering. These people who had been identified as a group simply because of a characteristic that the establishment despised. And instead of saying to us: ‘You miners, whingeing about the police: get used to it because we’ve had to’, they were so generous they wanted to help us. And in the end, we repaid it." - Dai Donovan.

[Niamh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pride is my favourite movie - hands down - and I've been meaning to read this for ages. Tim Tate brings together a (pretty) brief history of miners' strikes, trade unions, socialism, Thatcherism, and lesbian and gay history with the real voices of those who were involved in the South Wales mining communities and LGSM in the 80s. A bit patchy at times but it gives a fascinating insight into real life during the time. Beautifully summed up in its ending message of hope which encourages readers to have courage, kindness and solidarity - "A common cause may always be found if only we break down the barricades of prejudice".

[James Stephens · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides a fascinating insight into what it was like living in Thatcher's Britain. My favourite parts were the light historical context that outlined the politics of the time and bares a disturbing resemblance to British politics today.
I felt the book was a tad repetitive at times which I suppose is expected when the story is told through multiple perspectives.
I appreciated the critical view it gave which shone a light on the controversies surrounding the Miner's Strike as well as the underlying tensions in LGSM.
I decided to read this book after watching the 2014 film, which if you enjoyed, I would recommend learning more about the true story from those who lived through it.

[Caterina Fucecchi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pride is one of my all time favourite movies, so when the book came out I knew I had to read it, and to make it more special, I bought it in Gay’s The Word bookshop!

This was a beautiful insight into this incredible story and I loved the fact that there was much more background provided in regards of the political situation, more in depth details of the strike and the struggles of the LGBT+ community under Thatcher’s government.

The format of this book as an interview worked great in my opinion, which is also why I read this book in less than three days. I loved it, I couldn’t put it down.

[Rivkah · Rating 4 out of 5]

honestly wasn't expecting this to be great because it looked like pop history from the cover but it's mostly oral history interviews with lgsm members + welsh miners and it was really cool to see the perspectives of the actual people involved (and all the things that were left out/changed in the movie to make it a more palatable narrative)

[Aimee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tim Tate’s book of the true story of the 1984 miner’s strike, as seen in the hit 2014 film of the same name. The most powerful part of this book is that it uses the words, voices and names of those who were there to recount the good, the bad, and everything in between in those mid-80s years that were so fraught and full of change. It’s amazing to see how much and how little has changed. Still, the power of kindness and compassion shines through and fills you with pride.

[Ruby Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant retelling of the true events behind the movie Pride. Reading the actual experiences of the people of Dulais and the hardships they went through, as well as the unlikely friends they made in LGSM, was very emotional and educational.

[Sean Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great companion to the film, as it gives even more background to the story and enriches the whole experience. If you loved the movie, I cannot recommend this enough.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You have worn our badge, 'Coal not Dole', and you know what harassment means, as we do. Now we will pin your badge on us; we will support you."