The pictures will be forever ingrained on our minds. They were so powerful that in 1984 the late Jo Richardson MP held up one of them in front of the Labour Party Conference, and the World’s media.  It showed a mounted policeman, baton raised, charging a woman whose only defence was to raise her arm across her head.  Looking back now at those black and white shots of nearly thirty years, it is still impossible not to be shocked at the organised violence meted out against young miners, dressed only in jeans and T shorts. The Battle of Orgreave came to represent the virtual civil war being played out across Britain’s coalfields, as all of the power and resources of the State were mobilised against pit communities fighting for their very right of existence. Continue reading →