Sussex officers set off to help police the miners’ strike
1984 - The shock waves from the miners’ strike had reached Sussex in June 1984 when this County Times photograph was taken.
It shows Sussex Police officers preparing to leave the county to head north where they would join the policing operation of the dispute.
June 18, 1984 saw the now infamous ‘Battle of Orgreave’, a confrontation between police and picketing miners at a British Steel coking plant in Orgreave, South Yorkshire. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) organised a mass picket of Orgreave with the intention of forcing its temporary closure. The NUM was represented by thousands of pickets from across the UK. The police deployed thousands of officers from ten counties, including Sussex. During the course of the confrontation, 93 arrests were made, with 51 picketers and 72 policemen injured.