A play about the miners’ strike reflects the intensity of belonging

The BelongingSpace is exploring how belonging works in organisations.

Several themes of belonging at work, in society and in politics are vivid in the recent production of 'Wonderland' at Hampstead Theatre:

- Camaraderie

- Community

- Continuity

- Belonging as membership or ownership

- Pride

The play is set in a Nottinghamshire pit in the early 80s around the miners' strike. The writer, Beth Steel, digs into rich seams of human drama. As she describes it:

"The play covers the shattering events that cut to the heart of British politics, that divided communities, that changed the country forever: the Miners’ Strike of 1984, the last English Civil War."

The ‘Wonderland’ is the land of the pit deep below the earth. Beth Steel grew up in a mining community (though she was only two during the strike) and has thoroughly researched and recreated the working lives and tensions of the time, taking care that the piece
"addresses both sides of the political divide".

Camaraderie is palpable from the outset. (It’s a credit to the writing and production that this is raw not sentimentalised.)

We see two sixteen year old apprentices – Jimmy and Malcom – joining the mine, under the wing of the supervisor – ‘The Colonel’. They are initiated quickly into the routines, tools, tasks and banter that make up belonging at work.

When the two lads get into a scuffle, three miles below the surface, The Colonel  explains bluntly why camaraderie at work is so vital:

“Down here your life is always in another man’s hands. Never forget it.

Now shake fucking hands. If it ever happens again, you’ll be sacked on spot.”

The intensity of reliance on workmates in a mine, the risk of life in each shift, is palpable in the theatre.

Again later, when tensions spillover about the strike without a ballot, The Colonel splits up two longstanding workmates close to blows:

“ENOUGH! You have a problem you take it up top ‘cause it don’t happen down here!”

Wise words for some office (and creative agency) floors as much as in a pit.

These scenes capture a critical aspect of belonging at work. Preserving close bonds and avoiding conflict makes sense in any environment, way beyond safety-critical industries.

This is why camaraderie is one of the key areas of focus in the research of the BelongingSpace.

Community

There are few tighter communities than the old pit villages. As one character says:

“What's a pit village way out a pit?”

Ed Hall’s outstanding production creates the intimacy of the tight working community. We see the men working together in the mid-earth heat in Yfronts, joking together in bawdy banter, washing together, singing and picketing together.

The strong bonds tense and flex through the complexity of the surrounding economics and the simplicity of daily reality.

The colliery communities’ fine tradition of music forms a potent soundtrack. The cast's hearty singing of

“I can hew boys, I can hack it out”

is also on the film of their research visit to a mine.

The play’s communities are defined by tone of voice: 

the miners’ Nottinghamshire dialect and earthy banter, the Tory ministers’ acerbic derision (a linguistic precision implying public school translation of Greek epigrams), the economists’ dehumanising objectivity, the battle-hardened intractability of the police, the war cry of ‘Scab! Scab! Scab’.

The cast carry the rhythms spontaneously: social dissonance is conveyed instantly.

An outsider to all these communities, David Hart (MacGregor’s adviser, running the 'Back to work' campaign) is characterised as eccentric even by Tory cabinet minister standards:

“You know he lives in Claridges?

… He wears jodhpurs! Riding trousers when he's not riding”

Status is defined right from the cast list: characters are ‘Above’ and ‘Below’.

The robust engineering of the set creates the environment of above and below – the cage lift carrying the miners (and us) deep into ‘below’, the gantries and scaffolding then becoming the ‘above’, with leaders looking down on us.

We feel the physicality, claustrophia and risk of the working lives below; the brutality and survival-of-the-fittest arrogance of life above.

By contrast, the strength of Ed Hall’s production is in the status–free ensemble. Strong direction along with inclusivity also marks the way in which he has transformed Hampstead Theatre, achieving outstanding creative standards, building a community of support, and turning the theatre around from a financial deficit into a surplus of £475,000: a few lessons here for industry on leadership style.

Continuity across the generations rings out in another traditional song:

“I’m the son of a son of a son of a collier’s son:

Go down!”

It is exactly this inheritance that the Thatcher Government and (then new in role) head of the Coal Board, Ian MacGregor, took on in their handling of the Miners’ Strike.

The play shows the bewilderment as continuity – with its taken-for-granted traditions – is dislocated by Government policy set far away from the ‘Wonderland’ deep in the pits.

History is vivid on stage. Sitting on the front row near a speaker it felt like the whole place was shaking during the mine explosions. The Battle of Orgreave, with its brutal violence between police and pickets (a social explosion), is visceral.

Belonging as membership and ownership is another theme in the play that we are looking at in our research at The BelongingSpace.

Do people belong as ‘members’ at work? Or are they ‘owned’?

Again, coalmining exposes the extremes.

For the miners and their families, belonging means membership of the community, to pull your weight alongside your mates. And to turn your back on that during a strike is to forfeit your right to membership.

For the Government and Coal Board belonging was about ownership – of the mines, of the power-source (in all senses), of the workers. Employment as an economic cog not a right.

Despite the writer’s effort to be even-handed, it’s hard to avoid the dominance of those 'above', through policy, policing and tampering with news footage.

The striking miners assert belonging through ownership of the coal itself, when confronted by a security guard as they’re scrabbling for scraps in a yard:

“Nick it?! We’re miners. How do you think it got up here in the bloody first place?”

Membership of the union did not extend to a vote to strike: that was owned by Arthur Scargill, intensifying the conflict of personalities as much as ideas.

But it’s not all black and white: the economic complexities in the shift of ownership from public to private exposed the chronic lack of investment. The country's reliance on coal provided enormous co-dependent power to the unions.

Insights in belonging

'Wonderland' is outstanding theatre. 
It also holds insights to the power of belonging to (and conflict between) different tribes at work.

 

Language betrays belonging.

For anyone decoding what it means to belong to a work environment - especially of conflict within an organisation - look at the language.

-  Do different communities share a common language?

-  How often do employees talk about ‘us’ or leaders talk about ‘them’?

-  Does 'belonging' spread across all layers of the organisation?

- Or is it ringfenced, with the various communities so isolated from each other that conflict is inevitable?

- Is continuity matched with evolution, a sense of shared future as well as of history?

Pride (a great indicator of belonging in a workplace) is poignant in the final scene of the play.

Outside the theatre on a balmy summer's evening, pride surfaced in the gentle Nottinghamshire hubbub of Beth Steel’s close-knit family.

Beth’s father - the real 'Colonel', now celebrating 40 years as a miner - couldn’t stop smiling:

"I couldn't see how it would work, how could you make a play of a mine?

But she's captured it, she's got the voice.

I couldn't be more proud."

Beth described her role as playwright:

“I always feel that it's not my story.

It's theirs, the characters: I'm just the teller.”

She's submitted a new play to Hampstead Theatre – exploring another work context causing contentious social division – and is waiting to hear if it may be selected. 

I do hope so.