We mustn't forget the Welsh miners and the wonderful songs that came out of South Wales in The Strike. Jon Heslop's Old Soldiers was actually played by the colliery band as the local pit went back and the miners walked through the pit gates, heads held high, banners held proudly aloft - beats having a number one any day!. And don't forget the contribution that the Womens Support Groups made and the songs that came from them. (At last weeks TUC Womens Conference there was a standing ovation for them in their support of their men.)

Then there's the Tin mining songs from Cornwall and the songs about the closure of South Crofty - the last tin mine in Europe. The chorus to Roger Bryant's Cornish Lads was painted on the wall outside the gates of Crofty just after it closed...there's a story about that too...