2 days ago
The truth about the 1984 miners' strike
On 6 March 1984, I found myself smack-bang in the middle of the largest industrial dispute in post-war history. As the son of a fifth-generation miner whose bedroom window looked out onto Pye Hill Pit in Selston – the remote Nottinghamshire mining village I called home – I couldn't help but be caught up in the miners' strike. And over its 363 days, I watched with bemused anger as a series of nods, winks, slights of hand and outright lies were fashioned into a hard and fast history.
On one side we had the National Union of Mineworkers' (NUM) principled president Arthur Scargill and the striking miners, fighting to save British mining. On the other side, Nottinghamshire's moneygrubbing scabs, intent on murdering Old King Coal – aided by Margaret Thatcher and the rozzers. Admittedly, the media didn't spell it out quite so plainly, but there were enough headlines and emotion-heavy images to make sure we all got the message.
