British brass band marches on with miners’ legacy, 40 years after milestone strike

40 years after the U.K. mining strike, Carlton Main Frickley Colliery Band embodies community unity and heritage.

Memories of the U.K.’s once-mighty mining industry are fading but 40 years after an epoch-defining strike, Carlton Main Frickley Colliery Band still embodies the close ties that once bound the community.

“It’s like the band, when times are hard, we stick together,” said Ray Sykes, chairman of the year-long 1984-85 strike, from the practice hall that has been his second home for 70 years.

Miners at Frickley Colliery, in the Yorkshire town of South Elmsall in northern England, prided themselves on being “second to none” during the action against planned pit closures.

Very few broke the strike, which was once described as “the decisive social and economic confrontation of Britain’s post-war era” that hastened the demise of heavy industry.

The mine, which employed 3,000 workers at its height, eventually succumbed and shut in 1993.

However, the mines were the foundation of the regional economy, and without them, communities are still suffering economically.

But the brass band marches on — consistently still ranking in the world’s top 10 — and keeps Frickley on the international map.