Striking With Pride

Striking With Pride sees us screening the powerful Sky 1 documentary that highlights the solidarity between the striking miners of South Wales and the London LGBT community during the 1984-85 miners’ strike. The screening will be introduced by Jonathan Blake of the LGSM, followed by a live performance from the Beaufort Male Choir.

Striking With Pride: United at the Coalface, a Sky Original feature documentary, explores the unlikely alliance forged between the gay men and lesbians of London, and the striking miners of South Wales, between the 1984 and 1985 London Prides.

Made famous by the 2014 BAFTA award-winning film Pride, this is one of the most unexpected and uplifting love stories ever, not between two people, but between two communities who – seemingly worlds apart – found common cause and compassion for each other in the face of immense challenges and changed the course of history for queer people in the UK.

The documentary features former Labour MP Siân James (played by Jessica Gunning in Pride), LGSM co-founder Mike Jackson (played by Joe Gilgun in Pride) and Jonathan Blake (played by Dominic West in Pride). RuPaul’s Drag Race UK finalist, Tayce, dons her iconic Welsh dragon look to narrate the film.

The evening will feature a performance by the Beaufort Male Choir, one of Wales’ most iconic male voice choirs, from the former mining community of Beaufort, near Ebbw Vale. The choir’s moving music features in Striking With Pride, including a snippet of their performance of Glad to be Gay with Jonathan Blake of the LGSM, adding heartfelt emotional depth to the documentary.

Jonathan Blake, a prominent LGBTQ+ activist and a founding member of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) who raised over £22,000 for our mining community, is well-known for his work in bridging communities during the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike.