Being of mining stock the demise of Margret Thatcher has been along awaited.
Take this song from my childhood years
“Here’s Maggie Thatcher Throw Her Up and Catch Her…Squish Squash, Squish Squash….
Dead Maggie Thatcher.
Yes, we sang this at four years old in the play ground. Instead of being “terrorists” Thatcher declaired the miners and their families “the enemy within”.
If you ever met my family nothing could be further from the truth.
To really understand the miners struggle in 1984 watch the award winning documentary “The Enemy Within”. One of the few documentaries that record the miner’s struggle in their own words, from the front line.
Through-out my adult life my artwork has been a vehicle to explore what exactly happened to the culture and community I was born into.
This print was made in 2003, I called it “Looking Through My Eye”.
In this piece Maggie is wearing my NHS glasses. I wore them from age 13 -20 and the lenses would often pop out and break untill my mum tide them together with sewing thread.
At the back is there is a photograph of a shaft entrance marker to Cadeby Pit where my father and grandfathers worked for generations. There is a cut-out of an old photography from the 1930 whereby children and their fathers would strike outside the pits with slogans such as “Don’t Let Daddy Go Down The Mine”.
Another collage from 2004 is called “Maggie Thatcher Wicked Witch”
2004 marked the 20th anniversary of the miners strike it was something I knew little about. At that time I lived with my friend Chris a drum & bass DJ, his parents worked at Channel 4 during the 1980s and were avid supporters of the miners’. He seemed to know more about the strike than me. He remembered that his parents had a Maggie Thatcher toliet roll, so he gave me a few pieces, which I then included in this collage.
Whenever Thatcher came on the T.V as a child I was encourage to call her “The Wicked Witch” it was like a panto. It must have been my parents way of dealing with it all.
The drawing bellow was created in 2013 it’s me looking back. I understand my heritage and roots. They are showing me the way.
I aint no Thatcher’s baby. No way.
1984 least we forget.
