‘This was about communities and people’s futures…’
The miner’s strike is an emotive subject for me. Whilst the strike came to an end two years before I was born, growing up in Doncaster, a town and surrounding area that has supported 18 different coal pits from 1856 to 2006, ensured that the legacy of the miner’s strike was ever-present during my childhood. My dad worked down the pit (albeit years before the strikes of ’84), my uncles worked down the pit, co-workers, friends, acquaintances – almost everyone around me growing up had some direct link to the coal pits. Whilst this means that it is impossible for me to provide an impartial review of Owen Gower’s emotive documentary Still the Enemy Within, I can tell you why I loved it…
Still the Enemy Within documents the events leading up to the miner’s strike of 1984 through the lens of the people that lived through it – namely, the miners themselves and their families.
Whilst it is undoubtedly true that Still the Enemy Within is not a comprehensive rundown of this major historical event, the decision to focus on the human aspect of this incredible story makes for a more emotionally engaging film. There is enough material from that era for a real deep dive into the subject, and while Gower’s film isn’t quite that, it serves as a poignant reminder for those that were there, or as a compelling introduction for anyone unfamiliar with the story.
This film is not going to change anyone’s mind, nor does it attempt to, it is simply an important document of a time and a group of people who were and continue to be marginalised and looked down upon. At a time when the ruling classes have never had more open contempt for the working man, Still the Enemy Within stands as proof that no lessons have been learned. Nothing has changed.