Former miners from North Wales and Lancashire will be guests of honour at a May Day Fair and Rally in Chester – marking the 30th anniversary of the year-long strike.

Keith Hett from Bersham NUM (National Union of Mineworkers), and his wife Anne, a key figure in the Women’s Support Group, will both be speaking at the rally.

Miners from Lancashire NUM will also be present with their banner.

During the 1984/85 strike trade, unionists from Chester raised money and collected food for miners at Bersham Colliery (Wrexham).

These miners stood solid for many months, but when many were driven back to work in November 1984, after eight months on strike, Keith and a small group remained on strike until the national strike ended in March 1985.

Trade unionists from Ellesmere Port held weekly collections of food and money in the town, and directed their support to NUM members at Point of Ayr Colliery, near Prestatyn.

Here members of the break-away UDM (Union of Democratic Mineworkers) refused to join the strike – but NUM members held regular pickets at the colliery – often supported by local trade unionists and miners from South Wales.

The May Day Fair and Rally, which will take place between 11am-2pm on Saturday, May 3, in front of Chester Town Hall, is the second to be organised by the local Trade Union Council.

Many unions, socialist organisations, environmental, international solidarity and campaign organisations will run information stalls – ranging from the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, to Keep Our NHS Public, and the Campaign Against Badger Culling. There will be a series of speakers, interspersed with entertainment, during the event.

There will be a stall in support of the Shrewsbury Pickets Campaign – the campaign to exonerate the 24 building workers from this area who were convicted of conspiracy during a strike in the 1970s. The actor Ricky Tomlinson has been invited to speak. He was one of the two pickets who were imprisoned for more than 2 years.

A key theme of the event will be ‘The fight for a Living Wage’ – reflecting both local and national trade union campaigns to resist the growth in poverty wages, zero hours contracts and under-employment, and bogus self-employment – which sees more people in work having to claim benefits, than those who are unemployed or can’t work.

Cecilia Jones, secretary of the local TUC, said: “May Day is an important day for remembering over 125 years of campaigning by the Labour Movement.

“The working conditions enjoyed by most workers today – weekends off, sick pay, paid holidays, pensions, maternity benefits, Health & Safety at Work, the right not to be discriminated against or treated unfairly – have all been fought for and won by trade unions during that time.”

Everyone is welcome to visit the stalls, and to listen to the speakers and entertainers.