Springsteen speaks out on miner support

Bruce Springsteen said he had been following news coverage about the strike

Rock legend Bruce Springsteen has spoken for the first time about his decision to donate thousands of dollars to the families of striking miners.

The singer invited women from support groups backstage at a concert at St James' Park in Newcastle in 1985.

This was when mining communities in the North East were trying to recover from the bitter year-long dispute, and he handed over a cheque for $20,000.

Speaking in a forthcoming BBC documentary, Springsteen said he had followed news coverage of the strike in the months before the concert.

Springsteen, nicknamed The Boss, said: "My parents were working class people and I watched them struggle their whole lives.

"I'd been reading about it (the strike) in the newspapers and so it was just something that felt it would be a good thing to do.

"It wasn't a big thing, it was just a good thing to do at the time."

'Hero to us'

The cheque was handed to Anne Suddick, from Northumberland, who was at the concert with her friend Juliana Heron.

Both had been running support groups during the strike.

The cheque was made out to the Northumberland and Durham Miners' Support Group

Mrs Heron said a man had tapped her friend on the shoulder and asked her if she could "please come and meet Bruce Springsteen".

"She was about half an hour and she comes back and she says, 'You'll never believe this'," she said.

"She just hands us this cheque and said, 'Look'.

"I said, 'That says $20,000', and she said, 'Yes, it's for the Northumberland and Durham Miners' Support Group'.

"And I said, 'But he doesn't know us', and she said, 'Yes, but he knows what we do'."

Mrs Heron described Springsteen as "a hero to us".

"He didn't do it for publicity," she said. "He did it because he wanted to do it."

The story features in a documentary, When Bruce Springsteen Came to Britain, to be shown on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer at 21:30 BST on 31 May.