Barbara Hughes (left), who served as the Mayor of Camden in 1994, 1989 and 2005, with her friend Rene Mackay – a trade unionist who died in 2006

• ONE addition needs to be made to your excellent coverage of the indomitable life of Camden’s former mayor Barbara Hughes, (Tributes to three-times mayor Barbara Hughes, July 20).

Her first mayoralty in 1984/85 coincided with the Margaret Thatcher government’s savage and mendacious onslaught on the mining community.

The government’s enforced programme of pit closures had as its avowed aim the reduction of trade union power.

This secretive and pre-planned offensive precipitated a strike and led to widespread poverty. Families in coal mining areas were destitute.

For example, even 10 years later Grimethorpe in South Yorkshire was the poorest settlement in the country.

Barbara spearheaded the urgent response in Camden to collect food, clothes and money to support the desperately needy families in the coalfields. As a borough we twinned with Doncaster to give as much practical support as possible.

I was Barbara’s deputy mayor but was also the junior barrister in the legal case when the National Union of Mineworkers was finally able to recover its funds from receivership and sequestration through the courts.

This was a unique occasion of a major trade union being deprived of all its financial assets, so that mining communities were forced to rely on goodwill and donations from sympathisers to keep from starvation.

By March 1985 the strike was over, but the aftermath was horrendous. Without wages, and without even trade union strike pay, families were totally bereft.

When Doncaster Council invited me as the incoming Camden mayor for a visit to thank the people of this borough for all that they had done, I of course took Barbara Hughes along with me.

In addition we took the then deputy chief executive, David Riddell, who in a sudden gesture took off his own coat and gave it to a family we visited in their own home, who were obviously in appalling financial circumstances.

On that visit we also had the chance to go down in a visit to the pit at Brodsworth, at one time the largest colliery in Yorkshire.

Suitably attired with helmet, lamp and overalls, and after a long trek underground, we crawled around pit props to talk to the miners working at the coalface.

At this point Barbara suddenly told me that she had always been “highly claustrophobic”. It was perhaps typical of Barbara’s unflinching resilience that she had not mentioned that before!

Fortunately we then had a ride out along the tunnels, face down on a conveyor belt, so we were soon back above ground.

Barbara faced so many challenges in life, but her example of selfless public service and her overwhelming support for individuals, particularly young people at Coram’s Fields, will remain a shining legacy in Camden.

CLLR JULIAN FULBROOK
Labour, Holborn & Covent Garden ward