Melanie & the Miners' Strike is a book of photographs discovered by Victoria P Gill that were taken by her mother Melanie around 1984, a period that coincides with the year-long industrial action that effectively pitted (sorry) Margaret Thatcher against three quarters of the mining workforce.
Of course Melanie & the Miners' Strike has everything and nothing to do with the miners’ strike. In essence it's just a lot of new wave early 80s kids (and their parents) hanging out in Leeds during a time of profound social, political and economic turbulence. The publisher (IDEA) says, 'The pictures speak for themselves. The pictures speak for Melanie and the people in them. This was not a time of camera phones and Melanie and her friends were not at university or art school, they were born in Leeds and left school and worked in Leeds. These pictures were taken with no motive, but just simply Melanie and her mates on their average weekends. We are fortunate that Melanie took these photographs and that Victoria found them and recognised something special in them.'
IDEA Books, 128pp, 16cm x 24cm, paperback with tipped-on print, first edition of 500, 2025