Social and Historical Context of Road by Jim Cartwright

Road was written in 1986 and was influenced by all the social and political issues of the time. It is still very relevant in today’s world, and is still making a statement about politics and the way the country is run.
The North of England was not in the best of conditions in the years leading up to Road. The influences go back as far as 1976, ten years earlier, when trade unions began to get a strong voice in the economic world. This meant that any issues raised by workers, especially manual labourers such as miners, could be passed on right to the government. To start off with, union power provided benefits for workers. The most notable improvement was in working environments. However, gradually the unions started to get too much power and too much voice, and they were almost running companies. Union leaders became people to fear for managers and bosses of companies. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party came into power, and she took it upon herself to sort th...