Eighty-six years ago, Britain was in the grip of its first and only general strike – which ran from 4-13 May 1926.
It started with coal miners, who were fighting a long-running dispute over the introduction of longer working hours and a pay cut. Transport workers, dockers, printers and others joined the action in solidarity.
As a 20-year-old member of the Independent Labour party, Hetty Bower from Hackney in East London, supported the strikers. She is now 106 years old, but remembers it vividly.
17 April 2017
[…] Miners of the General Strike – Independentlabour.org. […]
21 November 2013
[…] was interviewed by the BBC a couple of years ago, talking about her experiences of the general strike, and she appears in Julien Temple’s 2012 documentary on radical London history, London: The […]
16 May 2012
Bless:-) What an interesting lady – thanks for the link.