Dancing Through Hard Times: Girls Night Out During the Miners’ Strike

When you think of the hardships of Thatcherite Britain, eyeliner and hairspray aren’t the first things that come to mind.

For many northern communities, 1984 was a year defined by the trauma and turmoil of the miners’ strike. Yet for Leeds local Melanie, it was the year she turned 18, and went out with her mates with a camera in tow.

These images are now the subject of IDEA’s latest publication Melanie and the Miners' Strike, her lens on 1980s Leeds capturing nights out that were bigger than the hair. Melanie and the Miners' Strike has both everything and nothing to do with the strike, turning away from the political upheaval of the time to show candid snapshots of joy against the backdrop of societal chaos.

It was the same year that Morrissey famously stayed home, with the excuse ‘I haven’t got a stitch to wear’, yet Melanie’s pub-fuelled youth tells a different story to the dejection that plagued Thatcherite Britain at the time. Her photos reject the era’s gloom, capturing cheerful resistance in pubs and clubs, and her friends going straight from factory jobs to the dance floor.

The book was edited by Melanie’s daughter, Victoria, who found the photos under a bed during a Christmas trip home. Growing up, Victoria was surrounded by the warmth and energy of her mother’s friendships. She recalls vivid memories of coming downstairs at the weekend to a room filled with laughter—her mum and friends deep in conversation, mugs of tea in hand. These experiences instilled in her the idea that female friendships are not just important, they’re essential at every stage of life, particularly during tumultuous times.

Its been forty years since the strike bitterly ended, yet it’s seismic impact is still etched into the cultural memory of many northern communities, and the long-term effects of deindustrialisation continue to adversely affect them.

Leeds continues to be criminally overlooked in terms of its cultural output, but Victoria’s curation of her mother’s images challenges how culture is defined and valued. “Who and where holds cultural capital?" she writes in the book's introduction. "I was born and raised in Leeds and it always seemed like it was elsewhere, well certainly funding has gone elsewhere.”

Overlooked and underfunded, Leeds' culture has failed to be appreciated by the wider UK society—a reminder of the necessity to look beyond established cultural hubs. Sometimes, the most powerful cultural histories are hidden in shoeboxes under beds, just waiting to be seen.

Melanie and the Miners’ Strike will launch at Dover Street Market on May 15th as part of the store’s Photo London week, with 500 copies on sale.