As an ex miner I was and still am a dirty rotten stinking capitalist.

That said, I was arrested and let off before being processed for violent behaviour and possible ABH. What happened was, I was in the queue for the food hamper at the Miners Welfare, as we had a baby so qualified for the charity of others. Some lads who claimed to be from SWP, but not miners came into the car park and goaded some policemen nearby to fight.   Some of us decided to join in.

We beat the crap out of the agitators. Confused Plod (Merseyside that week) started changing their attitude after that.

Of course, in history you were either a blind faith communist or a capitalist lackey breaking the strike.

In reality, we were people who couldn't understand why the government wanted to destroy us and our union wanting to effect a change of government using us as a tool rather than the ballot box.

The history according to Th*tcher would be very different to that written by Scargill. His conveniently brushes over when we at college kept on our courses which upset some animals who told us not to go. We told them to bollocks. A week later a piece of paper was pushed through my letterbox saying at what time my wife pushed the pram to her mother's house each day.

Like I say, history accounts reflect the prejudice of the writer.