Ten years ago, Boff Whalley created a play for Red Ladder theatre company about the role of women in the 1984-85 miners’ strike. “We said ‘tell us your stories’,” he explains, as he recalls meeting the women who inspired the drama. “Invariably those meetings weren’t grim affairs. They were full of laughter and silliness and brilliant stories,” says Whalley, best known as lead guitarist of anarcho-punk band Chumbawamba.
The result was We’re Not Going Back, which follows three sisters in a pit village. Olive, Mary and Isabel are determined to set up a branch of Women Against Pit Closures (WAPC), the political movement encouraging women to join in strike action, set up camps in the mining pits and take public-facing roles in a campaign historically dominated by men. This month the play is revived for a tour, co-presented by Red Ladder and Unite the Union.
