The Battle of Orgreave

In 1984 the National Union of Mineworkers went on strike. The dispute lasted for over a year and was the most bitterly fought since the general strike of 1926, marking a turning point in the struggle between the government and the trade union movement. On 18 June of that year, the Orgreave coking plant was the site of one of the strike’s most violent confrontations. It began in a field near the plant and culminated in a cavalry charge through the village of Orgreave. Jeremy Deller’s 'The Battle of Orgreave', staged seventeen years later, was a spectacular re-enactment of what happened on that day.