No Redemption

Nearly three decades on, the miners' strike of 1984-85 is still a poignant memory for those involved or who offered solidarity support.

For younger people it's now part of a history experienced directly or indirectly by a previous generation.

There are any number of accounts and analyses, some politically revisionist, of the most significant period of class struggle in this country since the general strike of 1926.

It appeared, initially at least, that the strike might turn the tide against the vicious onslaught on working-class people ushered in by the election of a Tory government in 1979.

That didn't happen - an excellent analysis of why is provided in the recently published biography of Bert Ramelson by Roger Seifert and Tom Sibley - and this exhibition is a telling reminder in showing both what was at stake and the impact of the struggle on one mining community at the Easington pit in County Durham in particular.

No Redemption brings together photographs taken there by Keith Pattison in 1984 and short yet telling texts by writer David Peace.

Pattison, who spent six months in the coastal village as events took shape, eschews the aesthetic distraction of colour, though not an assured and creative use of composition. These are black-and-white images that inspire a range of responses from anger or outrage to empathetic identification.

Unlike media coverage of the "Battle of Orgreave" Pattison wasn't embedded behind the police lines as the choice of location and subject matter sharply demonstrates. It's partisan photography at its most persuasive, both as a history lesson and a reminder that "what goes round, comes round."

And, as a record of a community caught up in a traumatic battle against the power of the state it's inspirational in showing the participatory, organised resistance and solidarity of a mining community whose efforts were duplicated in pits throughout the country.

Appropriately enough, after a well-received tour of galleries round the country, No Redemption is now on at the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield - yet another good reason to support this excellent exhibition.

Runs daily from 10am to 5pm until May 20. Free. Telephone: (01924) 848-806. Images from the exhibition can be viewed at www.keithpattison.com and the No Redemption book is published by Flambard Press, price £20.