The Miners' Strike two decades on

By Triona Holden

Triona Holden meets up with one of the miners

Twenty years ago the BBC despatched a young reporter, Triona Holden, to cover the miners' strike.

Two decades on she returns to South Yorkshire to track down some of the people she interviewed.

When the strike began I was 24-years-old and ambitious.

I recall the run up to the strike. Everyone knew it was going to be a violent struggle.

Both sides were spoiling for a fight and I was keen to be on the frontline.

The story had both a professional and personal resonance for me.

My teenage years were spent in a pit community and my sister was married to one of the striking Barnsley miners.

Perhaps because of those links I found it easier than most to persuade the miners and their families to talk to me.

The landscape had changed beyond recognition - if I didn't know for sure that a pit had once dominated this patch of land I would certainly never have guessed Triona Holden

They had such a bad press in most newspapers that the distrust of journalists was almost as universal as their hatred of Margaret Thatcher.

Fortunately, they made an exception in my case and I got to know some of those involved quite well.

Driving to the site of the old Cortonwood colliery, going back there for the first time since the strike, I knew things would have changed a great deal.

But nothing had prepared me for what I found.

As I drove along a new by-pass I overshot the turning for the location of the pit.

There was nothing left to mark the spot other than the name Cortonwood on signposts - and they referred to a retail park.

New supermarket

The landscape had changed beyond recognition. If I didn't know for sure that a pit had once dominated this patch of land I would certainly never have guessed.

The massive winding gear had vanished, the pithead complex had been bulldozed and the slagheaps were now undulating grassy knolls.

On the main site of the pit there sits a shiny new supermarket, with a spacious landscaped car park.

The village of Brampton, which is right next to the site, was much the same at first glance.

Even the miners' welfare club was still there.

Jackie and Don Keating went through tough times

But on closer inspection, profound changes had taken place here too.

The rows and rows of houses once occupied exclusively by miners now belonged to a new community.

Young families had moved into the area, attracted by cheap housing and a low cost of living.

Jackie and Don Keating, who I interviewed during the strike, are one of only a handful of colliery families who haven't moved away.

Don was a coalface worker at Cortonwood and he found the recent coverage of the anniversary of the strike had stirred up old memories.

He said: "I thought I had dealt with the pain of what happened to us all that time ago, but the other night I was sitting watching a TV programme about the strike and I found myself overcome with emotion.

"I was welling up with anger and tears came to my eyes.

"After the strike we got on with our lives and I have to say things for us are really good now but there is still a part of me that misses the community of the pit, the friendships that we had."

'So demoralising'

Don's wife Jackie says these days she can look back on that tough time in their lives and see how far they have come.

But like her husband she still becomes distressed by memories of what they had to go through.

"I remember one of the hardest things was having to queue up to get shoes for our two children," she said.

"It was so demoralising, the people of the mining communities were proud. We didn't want handouts, we wanted to work so having to accept charity was particularly hard."

Don has since retrained and is a health worker in the NHS.

When I asked him what he felt was lost as a result of the pit closures he had mixed feelings.

"Obviously the sense of community has gone and that is a sad loss," he said.

"But if you ask me what would I prefer, to work in hot, cramped and dark conditions where you have coal dust on your packed lunch - or where I could wash my hands properly, wear a suit and have a cup of tea pretty much when I liked, then the answer is obvious."

I went back because I needed to provide for my family Mark Baldwin The trade unions' long decline

With the strike in its ninth month the village of Brampton went into a state of shock with the news that a man had gone back to work.

No-one believed it was possible at Cortonwood of all places, the home turf of the NUM leader Arthur Scargill.

More men followed and incurred the hatred of their colleagues.

It was almost impossible to persuade any of these men, who became known as 'scabs', to talk.

The passage of time has not assuaged the feelings of anger against them.

But one man was prepared to speak out. Mark Baldwin was the second miner to cross the picket line.

Coming from a traditional mining family, he said the decision to go back was agonising but in the end he felt he had no choice.

He said: "I didn't want to go back, I really didn't want to bring my family's name down and I wasn't trying to go against the union .

"It was just a case of need. We had no money; my wife and I had a small child at the time and there was no money coming in.

"I went back because I needed to provide for my family. I do regret going back but it was what I felt I had to do at the time."

Mark was moved to another house out of the village after his home was later broken into and wrecked.

Something lost?

Certainly people felt something special had been lost, but it wasn't the dirty dangerous digging of coal that they mourned.

It was the loss of friendships borne out of hardship and work, the disappearance of a traditional way of life.

It was poignant to walk the streets of Brampton again and consider that now the houses were inhabited by people who probably didn't know what winding gear was.

Their children learnt about the pits in school and King Coal has been firmly consigned to the history books.

Triona Holden's documentary, Living After the Coalface, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday at 2000 BST.