AT THE end of 1985 at least 900 miners sacked during the miners’ strike against pit closures remained unemployed and blacklisted.

Today 20 remain, unemployed for 30 years. Many were from isolated pit communities where no work other than the pit existed.

But in 1985 the Justice for Mineworkers campaign was born, with two aims in mind — to provide material support for the sacked men and their families and to campaign for their reinstatement.

Many had been sacked for having court convictions on trumped-up charges made as the forces of the state sought to break the miners.

The main activist behind Justice for Mineworkers is Rick Sumner, supported by his wife Christine.

Now 82, he is standing down.

The couple have been a regular feature at trade union conferences, demonstrations, celebrations and rallies across Britain for three decades. They run a fundraising stall selling pit union badges, commemorative plates, postcards, books, pit lamps, sculptures made from coal and other mining memorabilia.

“We started at a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference in 1985, about the aftermath of the strike,” Rick says. “There were about 900 sacked miners at that point who were blacklisted.

“After the meeting half a dozen of us got around a table and said we could not leave it there, and we set up the campaign. We have now been going 30 years and raised money and tried to look after them as best we could.”

Over the years thousands of pounds have been raised but there were other ways of helping. “There was a family in Nottinghamshire, their home was struck by lightning and their electricity had gone off,” Rick recalls. “They had kids. We gave them money to buy materials, and a couple of pit electricians rewired the house. A lot of things like that went on.”

Many of the sacked miners were unable to find work because of the isolation of their communities.

“They couldn’t move house because they had no money,” he explains. “And there were no jobs in the community other than the pit.”

Rick, himself an ex-miner, worked at Shuttleye pit between Wakefield and Huddersfield in West Yorkshire in the 1950s and 1960s. He left because of an injury not related to his work and did other jobs such as construction and, for 17 years, ran a community project in Manchester’s Moss Side.

Today he lives at Hornsea on the east coast of Yorkshire from where he and Christine have mounted their nationwide expeditions with their stall and his experiences in assisting sacked miners have seen some bright spots.

“Denis was a 39-year-old miner who was convicted for turning a carload of scabs on its roof,” he says. “He was a big lad but not strong enough to turn over a car with four scabs in it!”

After three months in jail and he was released towards the end of the strike. Deciding “not to vegetate” he ended up with a 2:1 degree in German and Russian, then got a post-grad teaching certificate. But he still couldn’t get a job. He applied for one at a private school wanting a teacher of Russian and German and preferably with experience of teaching rugby, which he played. He still didn’t get the job.

He decided he couldn’t take any more and he went to Russia and got a job teaching English to Russian businessmen.

“He’s now been there 20 years, married a Russian woman and they have three children and he’s done very well in the long-term,” Rick says. “He was an exceptional man.”

The number of such victimised men has diminished — a few got jobs, some disappeared and a lot died. Now there are 20.

Although Rick is pulling out of Justice for Mineworkers, he’ll still be committed to community activity and has plenty to do.

He’s a trustee of the independent lifeboat at Hornsea.

His and Christine’s dedication was recognised this month at the miners’ annual memorial meeting for Davy Jones and Joe Green, killed on the picket line during the 1984-5 strike, where keynote speaker Ian Lavery MP praised Rick — “a fantastic character” — and his work.

But Rick was not in the council chamber at the NUM’s Barnsley headquarters to hear the praise. Characteristically, he and Christine had left the meeting early to set up their stall at Barnsley Trades Club, where a social was taking place. There, lauded from the stage, the couple were presented with flowers and a pit drawing.