A new play explores what it was like being a Nottingham student during the Miners’ Strike

A new play explores what it was like growing up as a Nottingham student during the 1984-1985 Miners’ Strike.

Two Nottingham women, Lisa McKenzie and Jayne Williams, have explored the experience through the largely untold perspective of young girls in a play titled Sixteen.

On Lisa’s 16th birthday in 1984, her dad came home and told her he was going on strike.

Instead of thinking about factory shifts, pubs and teenage freedom, her world suddenly revolved around the picket lines, the BBC reports.

Now 57 and working as a university academic, Lisa has written the new play inspired by those memories.

The production focuses on three teenagers growing up on the Carsic estate in Sutton-in-Ashfield, one based on Lisa herself and the others inspired by friends in her past.

Rather than centring men outside the pits, the performance puts women and children at the forefront of the narrative.

To write it, Lisa teamed up with Jayne, who was just six when her own dad refused to cross the line.

via YouTube

Lisa said: “With the strike we always talk about that one year, but it affects you forever. What happened because of that strike has affected me my whole life but also everybody else in that community.”

Jane added: “We want to hear other people’s stories

“These stories have often not been told by women, and definitely not girls.”

Jayne’s memories of the strike, however, are very different to Lisa’s. Being 10 years younger than Lisa at the time, it all felt like “an adventure” for her and her brother.

“People would put you on their shoulders and walk with you. There was this big community.

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“So it’s been really interesting collaborating with Lisa on this and understanding the politics of it a bit clearer,” Jayne said.

The pair discovered their mums had both been members of Ashfield’s Women Against Pit Closures (WAPC), and so were heavily involved in support for the strike.

Lisa even found Jayne’s name on a list that had been written in 1984, when the WAPC were aiding striking miners’ families who were struggling financially.

The strikes ultimately inspired Jayne’s career in theatre, allowing her to learn about community and creativity, alongside the act of storytelling.

Lisa, meanwhile, has gone on to do her PhD and write about working-class life in Nottingham.

While studying at the University of Nottingham, she felt as though the only other people like her were “the cleaners and those that worked in the canteen”.

Sixteen will be performed across Nottinghamshire between the 9th and 13th September.

Featured image via Youtube