100 years on: Northampton screening explores the lessons of the 1926 General Strike
Wednesday 9 September 2026 | 7.45pm
The Lamplighter, Overstone Road, Northampton, NN1 3JS
One hundred years after millions of workers took part in Britain's General Strike, a powerful documentary exploring one of the most dramatic episodes in British working-class history is to be screened in Northampton.
Northampton and District Trades Union Council is hosting a screening of The General Strike – A Revolution Betrayed? at The Lamplighter on Wednesday 9 September.
The General Strike began in May 1926 when workers across Britain walked out in solidarity with more than one million coal miners who were facing a reduction in wages and worsening working conditions. For nine days, millions of workers took part in what became the largest industrial dispute in British history.
The newly rediscovered documentary, made in the early 1970s and recently unearthed from the archive of radical filmmaker Platform Films, provides a remarkable first-hand account of the events.
Rather than simply telling the history of the General Strike, the film allows those who experienced it to tell their own story. It makes extensive use of testimony from former strikers and relatives of those involved, providing a unique insight into what it felt like to be part of a movement that brought much of the country to a standstill.
The documentary also explores a question that remains controversial today: how close did the General Strike come to becoming a revolutionary challenge to the existing political and economic order?
Norman Thomas of Platform Films has described the extensive use of first-hand testimony as one of the film's great strengths.
For Northampton and District Trades Union Council, the centenary of the General Strike provides an opportunity not simply to look backwards, but to consider what the experience can tell today's trade union movement.
[QUOTE – TRADES COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE]
“The General Strike was about much more than a dispute over wages. It was about solidarity – workers standing together because they understood that an attack on one group of workers could become an attack on everyone.
“A hundred years later, many of the questions facing working people remain familiar: who has the power at work, who benefits from the wealth that workers create, and what can people achieve when they organise collectively?
“This film gives us the opportunity to hear directly from people who lived through one of the most extraordinary moments in British labour history. We hope it will encourage people to think about both the achievements and the mistakes of the General Strike – and what lessons they hold for trade unionists today.”
The screening comes at a time when trade unions continue to campaign over pay, job security, working conditions and the rights of workers to organise.
For a new generation of trade unionists and activists, the centenary is an opportunity to rediscover an important part of the labour movement's history – and to ask what solidarity means in the workplace and wider community today.
The event is open to trade unionists, activists and members of the public who are interested in labour history, politics and the continuing struggle for workers' rights.
There will also be a Northampton and District Trades Union Council meeting at 7pm, which observers are welcome to attend. The film screening will begin promptly at 7.45pm, and attendees are asked to arrive by 7.35pm.
Event details
Film: The General Strike – A Revolution Betrayed?
Date: Wednesday 9 September 2026
Time: 7.45pm–9pm
Venue: The Lamplighter, Overstone Road, Northampton, NN1 3JS
Please arrive by 7.35pm. The screening will start promptly at 7.45pm.
Tickets: Reserve your ticket