The story of miners in the Dulais valley in South Wales during the 1984-5 strike – the longest in British history – and a gay and lesbian group from London that donated more money (£11,000 by December 1984) to their cause than any other fundraiser in the UK, along with a minibus emblazoned with the logo LGSM: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners.

In a decade when a degree of homophobia was the norm, LGSM drove a couple of minibuses from Hackney Community Transport and a clapped-out VW camper van to a bleak mining town in South Wales to present their donations, uncertain what sort of welcome to expect. The events that unfolded said a lot about what it means to be empathetic, to overcome dissent and face common enemies: Thatcher, the tabloids, the police. They told a story about solidarity.


haggadah Section: -- Exodus Story