Tag Archives: Anne Scargill

In memory of Anne Scargill RIP.

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The Cork Mother Jones Committee is sad to announce the passing on Thursday 10th April 2025 of our great friend Anne Scargill following a long illness with Alzheimer’s disease. 

Anne was a lifelong community activist in the North of England.

She was a co-founder of the Women Against Pit Closures (WAPC) who took a key part in the struggle in defence of their mining communities during the Miners Strike in 1984/85. Later she remained active on social justice issues alongside her great friend Betty Cook for over 40 years and took part in the occupation of the Parkside coal mine over the Easter weekend in April 1993. This underground sit-in required extraordinary courage, made international news and highlighted the dreadful treatment of the mining communities after the strike was long over.

 Anne Harper was born on the 12th October 1941. Her background was totally connected to coal mining. 

“I was brought up in the heart of the Barnsley coalfield with my mam, dad and sister Joan in a terraced row in Barugh Green. There was a pub called the Phoenix at one end of the row and a Co-op at the other. My dad was Elliott Harper, a coal miner from a big family of colliers in Gawber. My mother was Harriet Hardy from Skelmanthorpe near Huddersfield.”

From Anne & Betty United by the Struggle. 2020

Anne Harper met a young trade union and political activist Arthur Scargill in Barnsley when she was 18 when he visited her father who was also a trade union man. They married in 1961. In their book with Ian Clayton, Anne describes their life and adventures as the union activist Arthur rose in the ranks of the National Union of Miners (NUM) to eventually become the president of the powerful NUM. She traveled extensively and experienced life in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. She attended the World Social Forum in Mumbai, traveled to Australia and visited Cuba where she encountered Fidel Castro. She met Hortensia Bussi, the widow of Salvador Allende in Cuba also. 

Anne second from left supporting the Greyhound Bin workers strike in Dublin in 2014. Courtesy of J Thomson.

She remained very proud of the way, her then husband, Arthur led the miners and proud of the women who joined in at the pickets, at the food kitchens and the marches.  She also noted that as the men marched back to work at the end of the strike, many women had been changed by their activism during the strike. Anne began to spend time with women’s activist groups. Taking inspiration from the Greenham Common women, the WAPC organised several pit camps outside mines to highlight the mine closures by the Tory government, Anne spent a year in the Grimethorpe pit-camp. She even sat in a camp outside the Tory party offices and the Department of Trade in London. And like Mother Jones, she was arrested on several occasions, once placed in a van prison cage and strip searched! She became even more determined to continue picketing and did so up and down the country wherever she was needed.. 

Anne and Betty at the County Hotel balcony, Durham Miners Gala 2014.

In recent times Anne accompanied by her friend Betty Cook, she visited the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival in Cork in 2014 and 2015 and returned in 2019 to take part in the March of the Mill Children recreated in Shandon that year.

Anne and Betty with their Daughters of Mother Jones banner at the March of the Mill Children in Shandon in 2019. Courtesy of Claire Stack.
Left to Right:. Anne Scargill, Spirit of Mother Jones Award recipient 2019 Louise O’Keeffe and Betty Cook.

Anne and Betty spoke at the festivals and sang Mal Finch’s great anthem ‘Women of the Working Class’. She enjoyed signing the visitors book in the Cork City Mayoral Office in the presence of the Lord Mayor of Cork, Chris O’Leary in 2014. 

Anne Scargill & Betty Cook sing “The Women’s Song”
Anne Scargill signs the visitors book, at Cork City Hall in the Lord Mayors Office in 2014. Cllr Chris O’Leary, Lord Mayor of Cork and Betty Cook look on. Courtesy of J. Thomson.

The women marched each year in the huge Durham Gala and proudly carried their ‘Daughters of Mother Jones’ banner along the parade route. Anne was just so happy to be amongst mining community friends. She also visited Jonesborough in the Appalachian mountains to meet up with the Daughters of Mother Jones colleagues such as Marat Moore and Libby Lindsay. 

Durham Gala.

With a glint in her eye, Anne loved to tell funny and hair raising stories about her activities. Laced with wit and shrewd and perceptive observations,she certainly did not stand on ceremony in the presence of the famous or those charged with upholding the law if she felt she was right. Her humour was ever present and her positive energy radiated through her activism. She always knew which side she was on and followed passionately in the footsteps of her hero, Mother Jones!

Ní bheidh a leithéid ann arís.

To Anne’s daughter Margaret and family we extend our sympathy and also to Betty Cook, her great friend and colleague in activism, and to her many comrades. May she rest in peace.  

“Anne & Betty United by the Struggle”, with Ian Clayton. Published by Route.

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This publication is a rarity.  Working-class women who fight for social justice seldom get an opportunity to tell their own story in their own voices. Social, trade union and labour history is sometimes interpreted by those far removed from the day-to-day lives and experience of those directly involved. The contributions of working class women remains unacknowledged and invisible when it comes to the absence of their names and images on the public monuments and street names of our cities and towns. 


Anne Scargill and Betty Cook did not come together until the beginning of the British Miners’ Strike in 1984/85 when they both joined “The Women Against Pit Closures Movement”. What followed was a roller coaster of practical action including feeding their striking neighbours and taking direct action to protect their communities. 


However, it also led to a personal journey for each of them. Both were married with families at the beginning of the strike but through the tumult of the mining war in the North of England, alongside a passion to stand against exploitation of people, they achieved their own personal independence and freedom in spite of the disastrous outcome of the Miners’ Strike. In the midst of defeat, Anne and Betty emerged with the power to act as they had discovered their own voices. 


The accounts of their early lives in Barnsley and Brick Lane are told in raw unvarnished personal accounts, without self pity, without preaching or seeking acceptance…… life was tough in the coal fields. Yet they tell their stories with gritty humour, compassion and fierce direct humanity in spite of personal tragedy and upheaval in their lives. The chapter: “Rent A Mob, Rent a Gob” leaves one angry and yet uplifted.  


Today they look back on a life of standing firm against the exploitation of workers and they do so with a sense of pride. Both remain committed to the struggle. Betty recently retired from a call-centre at the age of 81, however, she is worried that ” a lot of working-class people are against one another”, while Anne says that “anybody who needs help on a picket line only has to pick up the phone and I’ll be there”.

Their trip to the women miners reunion in Appalachia 2013, organised by Marat Moore (friend of the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival, Guest Speaker at 2012 Festival) led to the founding of The Daughters of Mother Jones group in the UK and inspired their interest in Mother Jones. Few will forget Anne and Betty’s powerful rendition of Mal Finch’s song “Women of the Working Class” at the Cork Spirit of Mother Jones festival in 2014.


In these dark times for working people with ongoing political upheaval and Covid-19 lockdowns, “Anne & Betty United by the Struggle” illuminates and shines warmly through adversity, hard times and the necessity to keep fighting against injustice. 


This book is highly recommended and is available from annescargillbettycook@gmail.com

Anne & Betty with their Daughter of Mother Jones banner at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival in 2019. (Courtesy of Claire Stack).

Anne & betty helping striking SIPTU workers in Dublin in 2014 (Courtesy J Thomson)


Anne Scargill & Betty Cook sing “The Women’s Song”

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Anne Scargill and Betty Cook, Women Against Pit Closures at the Firkin Crane with Yorkshire Mother Jones banner.
Anne Scargill and Betty Cook, Women Against Pit Closures at the Firkin Crane with Yorkshire Mother Jones banner.

A number of people have asked if any video footage was available of Anne Scargill and Betty Cook of Women Against Pit Closures singing their anthem from the Miners Strike era – “The Women’s Song”.  The song was written by Mal Finch.  Our thanks to Frameworks Films for the video.  By popular demand here it is – performed during their session at the Firkin Crane on July 31st.

WAPC Group who spoke at Festival visit SIPTU

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Shortly after they appeared at this year’s Spirit of Mother Jones Festival in Cork, representatives of Yorkshire mining communities including Anne Scargill and Betty Cook of Women Against Pit Closures paid a courtesy visit to Liberty Hall, Dublin, national headquarters of the country’s largest trade union, SIPTU.  There they were received by SIPTU’s General President Jack O’Connor.   SIPTU were also generous part sponsors of the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.

Betty and Anne with Jack O'Connor

Anne Scargill (right) and Betty Cook of Women Against Pit Closures being presented with a copy of Padraig Yeates’ book on the 1913 Dublin Lockout by SIPTU President Jack O’Connor. Photo: Jimmy Thomson.

 

 

British Miners’ Strike to feature at Cork Mother Jones Festival

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The Cork Mother Jones Committee is privileged to welcome Betty Cook and Anne Scargill to Cork.

Betty Cook

Betty Cook

Betty Cook was born in 1938 in Doncaster. Having trained as a nurse, Betty married and raised her family of three children and watched from home as the coal strikes of 1972 to 1974 took place. She was determined not to look on from the sidelines when the next strike began.

Anne Scargill

Anne Scargill

Anne was born in 1941, in 1961 she married Arthur Scargill and they have one daughter. She has worked at the local Co-operative Retail Society all her life. The Miners’ Strike and its aftermath was a life changing experience for both.

In March 1984, the National Coal Board announced that it was going to close 20 coal mines with the loss of almost 20,000 mining jobs. The leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, Arthur Scargill claimed this was part of a master plan by the Thatcher government to close many more pits and destroy the Mineworkers Union. (The release of the British Cabinet papers reported in the BBC earlier this year demonstrates that he was correct as there were secret plans to close 75 pits over 3 years with the loss of 64,000 jobs). Sporadic strikes broke out immediately and by the 12th March, Arthur Scargill had declared a national strike. Betty and Anne were founder members of the Barnsley Miners Wives Action Group. They became key members of the community support groups which eventually led to the formation of Woman against Pit Closures in Barnsley.

Betty and Anne Scargill had become friends and both were instrumental in the formation of Women Against Pit Closures.   WAPC played a major role in the period of the strike and has remained active to the present day. Many women including Betty and Anne initially organised the community kitchens, which fed whole communities during the strike. Soon they took on a more active role in the strike and joined in the pickets and protests and marches. In August 1984, over 20,000 women marched in support of the strike in London. Out of this activism emerged a new movement which brought together and empowered working class woman from mining communities all over the country and which has survived the closure of the pits. Following the miners defeat, life was never the same for many of the women activists as they had experienced a new sense of individual freedom, of personal strength and had found their voices as they addressed packed meetings up and down the country during the strike.

Betty and Anne have campaigned actively over many years. They attended the World Social Forum in Mumbai and were shocked at the poverty they witnessed when they walked the streets. During a renewed wave of pit closures in 1993 they helped with the pit camps, most notably Grimethorpe which were organized along the lines of the Greenham Womens Peace camp. Anne spent 5 days underground as part of a protest in 1993 at the Parkside Colliery in Lancashire. They have campaigned in support of the Wapping print workers. Both helped provide work wear for miners’, medicines and toiletries for Cuban miners and their trip to Cuba became the subject of a Channel 4 documentary. In 2012, a new banner from the Woman against Pit Closures featured in the Durham Miners Gala, accompanied by Betty Cook and Anne Scargill.

In Cork,  Betty and Anne will discuss their experiences of 1984 and 1985 and the impact on their local communities at the festival, they will give their recollections of an event that changed the face of Britain and changed them also forever. The British Miners’ strike and its aftermath may yet prove to have been a watershed moment in the history of British trade unionism, organised labour and the solidarity of the working class. All are welcome.