Iron Ladies (15) |Close-Up Film Review
Dir Daniel Draper, UK, 2025, 98mins.
Cast: (as themselves) Linda Allbutt, Kate Alvey, Kay Case, Betty Cook, Aggie Currie, Linda Erskine, Kate Flannery, Liz French, Lynn Gibson, Juliana Heron, Sally Higgins, Lizzie Holley (also as Margaret Thatcher), Rose Hunter, Maxine Penkethman, Sue Piotrowski, Christine Powell, Carol Ross, Lorraine Stansbie, K Southcliff, Janet Wilson-Cunningham, Heather Wood
Review by Carlie Newman
At the time members of the local Labour Party branches hosted miners who came to London to raise money to feed the families of striking miners. They also spoke at meetings and later on the wives got together to support the menfolk. They spoke passionately at political and union meetings. They were very impressive and gave speeches, not only in London and around the UK but also further afield in Europe and America.
This is the story of these women, taking different ones from various striking areas – South Yorkshire, Durham, Kent, Scotland, etc. With no money coming in, the women’s primary object was to set up kitchens and feed the families, including the many children of the striking miners. Getting funds to buy food and other necessities for the families meant that they had to raise money and this led to them telling the story of the strikes to fundraise.
2024 saw the support groups and communities, where the women had set up kitchens and fed all families in need, meeting together to commemorate and celebrate their work. The women present spoke about how asserting themselves during the strike resulted in changes to them, and the way that women were looked at. Impressed by the suffragettes and the changes they were able to bring about, the women know that their contribution kept the strike going and kept the communities fed.
Many of the women found that their lives changed following the strike period, they divorced, studied, took university degrees and many kept the groups going so that they are still active today. Their actions resulted in a different way of living for working-class women.
For those who remember this time, the film will stir your memories and for those who were born later, watch and learn!
