Made by Amber’s Current Affairs Unit, the video grew out of the engagement with the campaign against pit closures, the anti-nuclear and the peace movement. The context was the Miners’ Strike of 1984/5 and the enquiry into the plans for the Sizewell B Pressurised Water Reactor ran from 1983 to 1985. Druridge Bay in Northumberland was identified as a site for one of the planned, subsequent PWRs. Work on building Sizewell B began in 1987, but no further nuclear reactors have been constructed in the UK. More recently the UK government has encouraged renewed speculation on the nuclear energy option.

Can’t Beat It Alone draws on the involvement of Greenham Common Women, Easington Miners, Tyneside CND Groups, Whittle Women’s Support Group, the Save Druridge Bay Campaign and Billingham Against Nuclear Dumping. It explores the growing awareness that the coalfields were directly threatened by nuclear power and the suspicion that it was not economics or environmental considerations that sustained the British nuclear industry, but a political desire to reduce the influence of the mineworkers and to establish a secure source of plutonium for the weapons industry. It looks at how the different groups organised to turn the tide against the threat. Can’t Beat It Alone was broadcast as part of Channel 4’s Eleventh Hour series.

AMBER FILMS
Made under the auspices of the ACTT Workshop Declaration with financial assistance from Northern Arts and Channel Four Television.
Music: Beat it by The Ground