Collier Laddie

Forty years on from the 1984-85 UK Miners' Strike, the largest union-led industrial action in the 20th century, Rab Wilson - a former miner deeply entrenched in the strike - delivers a powerful narrative through his mining poems and strike diary, addressing contemporary social and economic issues in Scotland and the UK then and now. Having toiled in Scotland's mining industry for eight years, Rab provides an authentic voice that resonates with the struggles faced during the strike, vividly captured from his involvement between 12 March 1984 and 5 March 1985. This book serves as a testament to the working-class struggle, offering a unique perspective on the historical significance of Scotland's mining industry, skillfully expressed by a poet intimately connected to it. Rab Wilson emerges as an essential chronicler, ensuring the legacy of the miners' challenging strike endures in the pages of this evocative and timely work. Collier Laddie is an ode to resilience, solidarity and the enduring legacy of those who fought for justice during a pivotal moment in industrial history.

RAB WILSON is an award-winning poet who is a previous winner of the McCash Prize for Poetry, has held past writing fellowship posts; Robert Burns Writing Fellow for Dumfries and Galloway; James Hogg Writer in Residence in Ettrick Valley, and Scots Scriever at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum. In 2023 he was awarded an Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun Award for his work in Arts & Humanities in Scotland. He was born in New Cumnock, Ayrshire in 1960. After an engineering apprenticeship with the National Coal Board he left the pits following the miner's strike of 1984-5 to become a psychiatric nurse. As a Scots poet, his work appears regularly in The Herald, Chapman, Lallans and Markings magazines and he is the author of several highly praised volumes of poetry and a Burns scholar.