Barry Gilheany 🎥 Reviews Kenny Daglish a documentary Film By Asif Kapedia.


Last week, I had the opportunity and privilege to watch the Oscar winning film maker’s Asif Kapedia latest piece of cinematographic majesty, a documentary on the life and career of arguably the best footballer to grace British football grounds in the 1970s and 1980s – ‘King’ Kenny Dalglish who played for two contemporary giants – Glasgow Celtic and Liverpool where he also assumed the mantle of player manager and manager.

Having previously seen his films on two other legends sadly no longer with us - Amy Winehouse and Diego Maradona – I wondered how he would portray somebody with somewhat less mercurial and more unstable reputations than those two performing giants of our times. I didn’t need to have any concerns as Asif convincingly shows how his rootedness in a loving Glaswegian working class family; the mentoring and whole hearted support he got at Celtic from the legendary Jock Stein; the seamless way into which he fitted into Boot Room ethos of egoless camaraderie at Anfield and the rock of his own loving family fashioned the grounded and decent human being. It helps that, despite growing up in North London Arsenal territory and a family of Gunners supporters, Asif Kapedia has been a Liverpool fan since childhood!

But it is not just his exploits on the football pitch that the film focuses on; it deals with the trauma, horror and visceral injustice of the Hillsborough disaster and its impact on Kenny Dalglish. We see him becoming a de facto community leader for the loved ones of the Ninety-Six; attending endless funerals and visiting the survivors in Sheffield Hospitals. We also witness the psychological toll Hillsborough took on him and how it ultimately influenced his decision in his shock resignation as Liverpool manager.

The documentary is a pastiche of all the memorable moments from Dalglish’s career with the narrations from the subject himself, teammates, distinguished football journalists like Henry Winter, various Liverpool fan spokespersons, and the academic commentator Phil Scranton whose analysis of the culpability of the British state in Hillsborough.

It starts with scenes from the Glasgow of the 1950s and 1960s and of Kenny’s early family life. His father was an engineer and a talented footballer in his youth. It does not take long for the film to touch upon the sectarian realities of Glasgow. Dalglish senior was a solid Rangers supporter and when Kenny was 14, the family moved to within a stone’s throw of Ibrox Park. The young Kenny so wanted to go to the local Catholic school which had a proper football pitch. He was quickly made aware that such a move was just not on due to the entrenched divide of certainly that era, so it was off to the state (or Protestant) secondary school. However, Kenny while playing underage football was to attract the attention of Celtic scouts at the age of 15 and, on the advice of his father, he signed up for the Bhoys. The fact that the Celts were such the predominant power in Glasgow at the time (Stein’s charges won nine Scottish league titles from 1966 to 1974) was probably the decisive factor in his advice.

With voiceovers from Big Jock and the Celtic captain “Caesar” Billy McNeill, the shows wonderful archive footage of the Lisbon Lions European Cup final triumph in 1967 all of whom were born within a 25-mile radius in Glasgow and of training drills involving Kenny. He made his debut for Celtic in August 1971, and his first goal was a penalty he took in an Old Firm derby. We are given a powerful insight into the mental ordeal that he went through before converting the spot kick. What would have been the effect on him if he had fluffed his lines? Perish the thought.

Instead, he proceeded to win four Scottish League tiles and the same number of Scottish FA and League Cups. The archival coverage of his sublime finishing for the Hoops is particularly touching as soccer fans outside Scotland did not have full access to his wizardry. He played the role of the false No 9 long before it became part of modern lexicon and , for me anyway, it was an education in this art.

Having achieved all that was possible at Parkhead (apart from two unsuccessful attempts to win a second European Cup in 1972  –  Quarter Final and 1974 – Semi Final), thoughts begin to turn towards greater goals, especially the elusive European Cup. Kenny wrestles with the conflict between his ambitions and loyalty to Jock Stein who nearly died in a car crash in 1975. His integrity shines through his negotiation of this dilemma and, eventually with the advice of the Big Man, he moves to Liverpool in August 1977 for a then British transfer record of £450,000.

He fits seamlessly into the No 7 shirt vacated by the original Special K iconic figure at Anfield – Kevin Keegan who in the year of the Merseysiders’ first European Cup triumph was transferred to SV Hamburg in a widely trailed move before what turned out to be his last match for Pool on that glorious night in Rome when Liverpool beat Borussia Monchengladbach 3-1 (also the occasion of goalscorer Tommy Smith’s valedictory appearance).

With fellow Scotsman Graeme Souness and Alan Hansen signed the same season, Dalglish formed a Tartan backbone to English football’s superpower of the mid and late 70s and 80s. Under the unassuming but wily Geordie, Bob Paisley, who had succeeded the legendary Bill Shankly three years previously and with the engine that was Liverpool’s Boot Room coaching figures of Roy Evans, Ronnie Moran and Joe Fagan Pool hoovered up five League titles, three more European Cups and four successive League Cups from 1978 to 1984 (season 83-84 saw a treble of League title, European Cup and League Cup under Ronnie Moran who had assumed the reins from Paisley.

In partnership with prolific Welsh international striker Ian Rush, over 13 years Dalglish scored 174 goals in 515 appearances for Liverpool but it was his goal in the 1978 European Cup Final at Wembley against FC Bruges which ensured Liverpool’s retention of the trophy is aguably the one that he probably most treasures as it was his life time ambition to lift the trophy and really marked his arrival on the global stage.

But it was by no means all sweetness and light in the wider community around Anfield. The film starkly portrays the effects of mass unemployment, deindustrialisation, and racism on Merseyside (depicted most vividly in Alan Bleasedale’s series The Boys from the Blacksmith) and its outworking in the Toxteth riots in July 1981; the worst seen in Britain. It was era when the Thatcher government was seriously considering a strategy of ‘managed decline’ for Merseyside. The film well conveys how Liverpool Football Club became a badge of identity and a locus of pride in which the hopes, aspirations and spirit of a people often cast out and ‘othered’ by the British establishment.

But it is not just economic and social deprivation on Merseyside that forms the backdrop to this biopic. There is raw and public tragedy. The first was the Heysel disaster in Brussels when disturbances between Liverpool and Juventus fans on the crumbling terraces before the 1985 European Cup Final led to the collapse of wall causing the deaths of 39 supporters of whom 21 were Italian. As the rumours turned into awful facts and as the body count mounted, the morality of proceeding with a football match seemed outrageous; a sentiment that seemed to accord with Dalglish’s feelings. Eventually, in what basically is a footnote in history, the match did proceed with Juventus 1-0 victors. Five years of the exclusion of all English clubs from UEFA competitions followed.

The day after the Heysel disaster on 30th May 1985, Kenny Dalglish was appointed player manager of Liverpool after Joe Fagan stepped back. In his first season 1985-86, he won, for only then the fifth time in English soccer history, the League Championship and FA Cup double with his goal at Chelsea on the last day of the season securing the title. A 3-1 victory over their rivals across (then) Stanley Park, Everton, brought him the one trophy that had eluded Paisley and Fagan – the FA Cup.

On Kenny’s watch, Liverpool underwent significant renewal with the signings of John Barnes, Peter Beardsley, John Aldridge, and Ray Houghton. The signing of Barnes was a particularly important statement as it was Liverpool’s first high profile black signing (Howard Gayle had made his debut in 1977 and was an acknowledgment of Liverpool’s black community) and did experience overt racism in his first season; the image of him lifting up a banana thrown at him is especially iconic. Barnes and Beardsley became the attacking lynch pins of the side that won the title in 1988 which was arguably the most rhythmic and attacking Liverpool side ever. Kapedia shows footage from a really vintage match of that season, a 5-0 demolition of Nottingham Forest featuring passing movements and ball retention of such telepathy as to invite comparisons with Don Revie’s Leeds side in their pomp in 1972 or the Arsenal Invincibles Premiership winning team of 2004.

But Kenny Dalglish’s time at Liverpool is not defined purely by his artistic genius on the pitch alone. For in 1989, Liverpool Football Club was plunged into tragedy of incalculable proportions as a result of the deaths of 96 supporters due to crushing at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough ground at the start of the FA Cup Semi-Final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. The story of this monumental disaster and all the egregious injustices that have flowed from it have been well documented and analysed elsewhere. What is most poignant about Kapadia’s portrayal is the fear and agony etched on Kenny’s face as he awaits news of his son Paul and daughter Kelly (now a successful football presenter) who had attended the match. He takes us through how Kenny assumes the role of unofficial spokesperson for the injured and bereaved of Hillsborough. He attends the injured in hospital almost miraculously bringing one fan out of a coma. He goes to as many funerals as is humanely possible. He dedicates the 1989 Cup Final in which Liverpool again beat Everton 3-2. But the psychological effects of him being a public face of the Hillsborough bereaved take their toll. His wife attests to his frequent depressive episodes. Breaking point comes in February 1991 when after a 4-4 Cup replay draw with Everton, he resigns as manager, breaking the apostolic succession from Bill Shankly and the Boot Room regime.

A wonderful exploration of football prior to the Premier League and its cash accumulator culture. A vanished era where a club whose players were born within a 25 miles radius could reach the commanding heights of Europe. When the top English sides had a Caledonian spine. The only omission in the film is his excellent Scottish international record reaching three World Cup Finals in a row.

But what sums up his commitment to the people of Liverpool and to truth and decency was his response to the entreaties of Kelvin McKenzie, who as Editor of the Sun published the sickening falsehoods of Liverpool fans stealing from the dead and urinating, seeking to apologise. Kenny’s response “Put on the Front Page that You Lied.” Bullseye!

On Amazon Prine Video from 6th November 2025.

Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.

Kenny Dalglish

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Eight Hundred And Seventy Seven

 

Pastords @ 9

 

A Morning Thought @ 2957

Pádraig Drummond  
I've been contemplating on writing something about Drogheda, but where do you even start? 

Another roof torched, a family nearly burned alive, and the same rotten excuses bubbling up from the gutters. Drogheda’s just the latest in a grim roll call, Ashtown, Donegal, Mayo, Coolock, Limerick, Sandwith Street, Finglas, Wicklow, the list is endless on a map of fear stitched together by fire and hate. The same old poison dressed up as concern, peddled by grifters who’ve never known a hard day’s work or a hungry child.

Let’s call it what it is: racist arson, plain and simple. Working-class people turned against working-class people, while the real bastards the landlords, the speculators, the polished suits who gutted housing and sold off the city sit back and laugh. The State can’t wash its hands of this either. Their silence and their cowardice built the kindling. They let desperation fester until the mob lit the match.

This isn’t Ireland’s spirit. It’s the sickness that grows when solidarity is strangled and fear is fed. We’re better than this. We have to be. No tricolour ever stood for burning families out of their beds. The real republic we’re fighting for is one where no one’s left to sleep in the cold or run from the flames.

The arsonists, the agitators, the cowards hiding behind flags and Facebook pages: you don’t speak for us. And to the people of Drogheda, to every worker, migrant, and neighbour who’s had enough of the hate, keep your heads up and your hearts hard. The fire might rage for a night, but solidarity, real solidarity, burns longer.

⏩Pádraig Drummond is an anti-racism activist.

Racist Arson, Plain And Simple

Middle East Eye Written by Jonathan Cook

The legal and ethical earthquake from Israel’s carnage in Gaza was never going to be contained there. As the Aston Villa row shows, the shockwaves for Britain will keep growing louder

No one should be surprised that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer confected yet another duplicitous antisemitism furore last week - one in which he implicitly cast West Midlands Police as colluding in Jew hatred and insisted that British Muslims be exposed to racist violence from visiting foreign football hooligans.

Starmer had demanded that a decision by the police to bar fans of an Israeli club, Maccabi Tel Aviv, from attending a Europa League match in Birmingham next month be overturned.

He indicated that the West Midlands force had approved the ban on the grounds that hatred towards Jews in Britain had reached such fever pitch that police could no longer guarantee the Israeli fans’ safety from antisemitic violence.

His reasoning defamed both the British public and the police. The media lost no time in amplifying his narrative.

But Starmer’s claims were pure disinformation - as he surely knew from the police intelligence reports that must have been submitted to him before he called for the ban to be reversed.

Continue @ Middle East Eye.

Maccabi Tel Aviv Row Reveals Starmer’s Cover Story For Colluding In Genocide

Enda Craig ⬟ All TDs in the Dáil quietly accept that they won’t deliver meaningful change for their constituents. 

What they do recognise is that there are 174 seats to fill—and the real contest isn’t about policy, it’s about visibility.

Clicks, likes, shares, and media coverage have become the currency of political survival. That’s the game, and every TD knows it.

Substantive achievements for the electorate come a distant second to dominating the spotlight and securing re-election. Those who dare to point out the lack of real progress are often met with hostility from loyal supporters.

Legislative impact isn’t the priority—there’s no accountability for that.

The system rewards performance theatre and grandstanding over measurable progress.

It’s about talking the talk, getting elected, cashing in, and staying. put.

⏩ Enda Craig is a Donegal resident and community activist.

The Reality Of Getting And Staying On The Gravy Train

A Digest of News ✊ from Ukrainian Sources ⚔ 27-Ooctober-2025.

In this week’s bulletin

⬤ Ukrainian unions solidarity call.
⬤ Scottish unions’ Kharkiv report.
⬤ More evidence of Russian killing of civilians.
⬤ Persecution of Crimean Tatars.
⬤ Beatings in captivity.

News from the territories occupied by Russia

Face of Resistance: Crimean Tatar Activist Zekirya Muratov (Crimea Platform, October 25th)

Russia sentences youngest abducted journalist to 14 years for Melitopol Telegram channel (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, October 24th)

Ukrainian abducted, tortured and sentenced to life because Ukraine carried out an attack on Russian invaders (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, October 24th)

Imprisoned Ukrainian marine biologist charged with ‘treason’ for opposing Russia’s plans in Antarctic area (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, October 23rd)

Russian court orders rearrest and 17-year sentence against blind and disabled Crimean political prisoner (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, October 22nd)

Occupied territories: ‘ownerless’ homes will go to the Russian state, by law (Meduza, 21 October)

Occupiers Detain Ukrainian Antarctic Scientist Leonid Pshenychnov (Crimea Platform, October 21st)

Weekly update on the situation in occupied Crimea (Crimea Platform, October 21st)

Crimean Tatar Political Prisoner Tofik Abdulgaziev Diagnosed with Diabetes and Other Serious Health Conditions (Crimea Platform, October 21st)

Menacing threats against human rights defender Lutfiye Zudiyeva after Russia’s arrests of four Crimean Tatar women (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, October 20th)

News from the front and ‘peace’ negotiations

Trump and Putin: from summit to no summit (Meduza, 22 October)

Russian invaders gun down civilians in Pokrovsk, try to kill others in evacuation van (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, October 21st)

Russian army closing in: the battle for Pokrovsk (Meduza, 20 October)

News from Ukraine

Russia’s war has transformed Kharkiv’s hardest-hit neighbourhood (Meduza, 24 October)

Social Protection and Housing in Rural Hromadas near the frontline (Cedos, October 17th)

War-related news from Russia

“We Wanted to Show the Whole Range of Anti-War Resistance in Russia” (Posle, October 22nd)

Journalists and academics swept on to Russia’s ‘extremist’ and ‘terrorist’ list (Meduza, 22 October)

Brainwashing 101: How state propaganda hijacked Russian education (The Insider, October 22nd)

ICE goes after Russian asylum seekers (The Russian Reader, 22 October)

Ribbons of trouble. Criminal charges for teenagers who livestreamed vomiting on war symbol (Mediazona, 21 October)

Prosecutions doubled for ‘treason’ and ‘espionage’ (iStories, 21 October)

Russia passes massive sentences against 15 Ukrainian POWs for defending Ukraine against its invasion (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, October 20th)

“Our people poisoned Navalny”: Former FSB officer on surveilling opposition figures and running black ops in Russia and Ukraine (The Insider, October 18th)

St Petersburg Street Musician Arrested After Viral Anti-Putin Gig (Moscow Times, October 16th)

“One Day, Women Will Eat the Kremlin” (Posle, October 15th)

Analysis and comment

Rental Housing in Ukraine: Current State and Challenges (Cedos, October 24th)

Civilians and infrastructure targeted: Ukrainian unions call for solidarity (Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine, 22 October)

500+ recommendations for Ukraine’s path towards the EU by NGOs (Zmina, October 20th)

‘In the Western European left, there’s a desire to put up a wall and ignore what’s happening in the east’ (Links, October 19th)

Homophobia at the core of Putinism’s ideological positioning (Commons.com, October 11th)

Research of human rights abuses

Growing up waiting for their fathers: a photo exhibition about the children of Crimean Tatar political prisoners opened in Kyiv (Zmina, October 22nd)

"They're destroying Ukraine's cultural elite": number of artists and media workers killed since 2022 revealed (Ukrainska Pravda, October 21st)

International solidarity

UNISON Scotland Kharkiv delegation report (Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, 23 October)

Toxicity: backing for Russian political prisoner Mikhail Kriger (The Russian Reader, October 20th)

Upcoming events

Monday 3 November, 7.0pm, on line. UNISON Scotland Branches Kharkiv Delegation Report Back. Information and registration here.

Thursday 20 November, 7.0pm: Try Me for Treason – readings of speeches from Russia’s courts / Book launch for Voices against Putin’s war. Pelican House, 144 Cambridge Heath Road, London E1 5QJ. Ukraine Information Group. 
🔴This bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. More information at Ukraine Information Group.

We are also on twitter. Our aim is to circulate information in English that to the best of our knowledge is reliable. If you have something you think we should include, please send it to 2U022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com.


We are now on Facebook and Substack! Please subscribe and tell friends. Better still, people can email us at 2022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com, and we’ll send them the bulletin direct every Monday. The full-scale Russian assault on Ukraine is going into its third year: we’ll keep information and analysis coming, for as long as it takes.

The bulletin is also stored on line here.

To receive the bulletin regularly, send your email to:
2022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com.
To stop it, please reply with the word “STOP” in the subject field.

News From Ukraine 💣 Bulletin 168

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Eight Hundred And Seventy Six

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Eight Hundred And Seventy Five

 

Pastords @ 8

 



A Morning Thought @ 2956

People And Nature🏴Dave Temple, who died on 13 September aged 81, was a lifelong militant in the labour movement.f


He worked as an electrician at Murton colliery, county Durham, and played a leading part in the mineworkers’ union for several decades. We worked closely together for much of that time, and Dave’s family asked me to write part of the eulogy read out at his funeral on 7 October by the celebrant, Nichola Reeder. With their agreement, I am posting it here  Simon Pirani.

Dave Temple

Dave was known for his organising work in the mining communities, before and during the 1984-85 strike, defending the union and its members in the aftermath, and working to renew labour movement traditions through the Durham miners’ gala, the Redhills project and other activities.

Dave had a strong framework of ideas that underpinned his approach: socialist beliefs, that humanity could go past capitalism and establish social relations based not on exploitation and violence but on human needs and desires; that change had to be international and internationalist; that the movement needed to do things in a collective, constructive way that reflected the future we look to.

And he had a sense of history and the way society changes over time – a context within which to understand the immediate.

In the 2024 gala programme, Dave wrote an article marking the anniversary of the big strike, which ended:

For over two centuries, miners fought for justice – to free themselves from the servitude of the yearly bond, feed their families, establish safer working conditions and abolish the private ownership of the mines. To achieve these goals, they made demands of government and developed socialist principles. But they also sought to solve the immediate problems in their communities.

They built cooperative store to escape the exploitation of the company “tommy shops”, and reading rooms to inform and educate. They inspired doctors’ panels to socialise health care. They built homes for the old and infirm, long before there were council houses. Their sports grounds and welfare halls were the envy of the working class.

It was this tradition of creating a caring society that was invigorated during the miners’ strike. We need it now more than ever.

This sense of history went well with Dave’s natural personal optimism. It was especially important in tough times, such as the years after the 1984-85 strike, when he understand how the difficulties and tragedies were part of a larger process, that had the potential both for progress and for reaction.

It’s very significant that in those hard times he put so much energy into developing the Durham miners’ international links.

Dave’s socialism was influenced by his family background, and by the Trotskyist organisation that he joined in the 1960s, and remained in, until it broke up in the 1990s. That’s where I got to know him.

He well understood that the ideas we talked about in small circles – often exaggerated, sometimes deluded, for a long time held together by an approach to party organisation that proved to be wrong – had to be tested out in the wider movement. And if they didn’t pass the test, they needed to be rethought.

In the years after the miners’ strike, in a labour movement milieu with more than its fair share of careerists and big egos, Dave was the very opposite. He undertook huge organisational tasks – such as with his printing company, with the Friends of the Miners Gala and Redhills – without a word being said on big public stages that others enjoyed appearing on.

Mineworkers’ union banners at the funeral service for
Dave Temple at Durham Crematorium on 7 October

In a milieu with more than its fair share of exaggerated arguments and personal squabbles, he maintained dignity and a proportionate sense of humour at all times.

After Dave died, his son Sean reminded me that his dad believed “you do not leave your wounded on the battlefield”. Straight after the miners’ strike, Dave was deeply involved in supporting miners who had been jailed and victimised.

In those years, Dave also organised and, with other friends and comrades, raised the money for nursing care for Des Warren, towards the end of Des’s life. Des was a union militant, who became very ill as a consequence of having been tortured with the “liquid cosh” when jailed on conspiracy charges arising from the 1972 building workers’ strike.

When people from around the world, who we saw as comrades, faced hardship and repression, Dave put a huge amount of energy into helping them. For example, our friends in the Kosovan and Bosnian mining unions, and the South African miners that Dave met when he travelled there.

After leaving the pit himself, Dave put his energy into Trade Union Printing Services and creating a printing and publications business that would first and foremost serve the labour movement.

Dave also became preoccupied with preserving the union’s and coalfield communities’ traditions, firstly through the annual Miners Gala. And in the 1990s and 2000s, he wrote a series of books about the Durham coalfield’s history, including two volumes of The Collieries of Durham; the Durham Miners Millennium Book  📖 Above and Below the Limestone (which is about the mining communities of Easington), and The Big Meeting: A History of the Durham Miners’ Gala.

Dave was someone I thought of as “comrade”, in a way that really meant something. When we worked together in the 1980s and 1990s, I looked up to him as someone older and wiser than me, who was always very respectful towards me and all others. I never lost that feeling. We will all miss him.

☭☭☭☭

There is much, much more to say about the history of which Dave was part – history that he helped to make. But here are just two more points. First, I want to express my deepest condolences to Jean, to Sean and Corina, and to Dave’s whole family.

Second, I will add this story of my own, about the efforts we made in the early 1990s to build bridges between the labour movement in the UK and in Russia and Ukraine – bridges that retain their significance today:


In 1990 I visited what was then still the Soviet Union for the first time. Both Dave and I were still members of a Trotskyist organisation, the Workers Revolutionary Party, that would break up not long afterwards. I was working for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), editing its newspaper.

A year earlier, in 1989, the Soviet coalfields had been shaken by a gigantic strike wave, the most widespread workers’ revolt since the 1930s. In Moscow, together with Russian friends, I approached the independent mineworkers’ union, which had emerged from those strikes, and urged them to make contact with their counterparts in the UK. Several of the still new organisations that made up the independent miners’ union showed interest, particularly the strike committees in the western Donbass, Ukraine, based in Pavlograd.

Dave Temple (on the right, with beard) at one of the many
open-air rallies during the 1984-85 miners’ strike

The independent union was shunned by the International Miners Organisation, to which the NUM was affiliated at national level, and which was linked to the old bureaucratic Soviet miners’ union that had collaborated with the bosses against the 1989 strikes. But the Durham area NUM welcomed the contact with open arms.

Dave, who at that time was serving on the NUM Area Executive, was well known by his fellow mineworkers for the enthusiasm with which he sought out international links, and he was soon dispatched to Pavlograd.

He was the first British person many of his counterparts there had met. In a sarcastic play on the then-prevalent discourse about the “wild” former Soviet east and “civilised” western Europe, someone among them nicknamed him “Columbus”.

Dave’s report back to the Durham union about his trip was included in the 1992 programme for the Durham Miners Gala:

One miner I spoke to summed up the motive force behind the Soviet miners’ unrest like this: “Our aim is to make a human being into a human being, not a workhorse. We want miners to be proud of being miners.” […]

After 70 years of almost total isolation from their fellow workers abroad, the miners in the Soviet coalfield are eager to compare their conditions with those of other countries.

In Donetsk, Krasnoarmiisk [renamed Pokrovsk in 2016] and Pavlograd, the questions were the same: “How many square feet of space does a British miner and his family live in? How many days a week can you afford to eat meat? What is the temperature down your pit?”

Their complaints are uncomplicated: empty shelves in the food shops; cramped living conditions at home; high accident rates at the pit – all adding up to a low quality of life.

But these miners are not demoralised. 


In 1992, another North East Area NUM delegation visited Donbass – by this time, in newly independent Ukraine. The late David Hopper, NUM (Durham Area) General Secretary, said on his return: “We were deeply shocked. We were in Pavlograd for seven days, in the company of miners for the whole time, and the conditions there were appalling.”

That delegation found that underground conditions were “comparable to British mines of 60 years ago”. Although there was machinery for coal-cutting and driving headings, it was at least 20 years behind UK standards. Dust suppression appeared to be unheard of.

Throughout the 1990s, the Durham miners – who were themselves going through tough times, dominated by pit closures and economic changes – kept in touch with their western Donbass counterparts. (More of the story was told in the 2022 Gala programme.)

In 2014, just weeks after the Donbass coalfield had been riven by the establishment of the Russian-supported separatist “republics”, a trade union representative from the region, Sergey Yunak, was welcomed as a speaker at the Durham miners’ gala, where he called for the “territorial integrity and independence of our country”. In 2022, the NUM was one of the first British unions to declare its support for its Ukrainian counterparts and contribute to efforts to send medical and humanitarian aid to mining communities on the front lines.

I would not say that none of these things would have happened without Dave Temple. But, for sure, they happened the way that they did, due, among other things, to his patient, caring, principled efforts.

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Dave Temple 🏴 Mineworker And Militant