Having known Michael McGahey pretty well, I can say unequivocally that he had no time at all for Scargill. But, as far as I know, he never spoke out against him, nor broke with him before and during the strike, though his intervention could have ended the nonsense there and then. His only disagreement with Scargill that became public was when he urged NUM/UDM rapprochement after the strike, and an end to the bitterness, on the basis that the industry was not big enough for two unions. Scargill wouldn't hear of it, but then he was never big enough to let common sense outweigh his bitterness.

Here's a bit more history, if anyone's interested.

Scargill first achieved national notoriety in 1970. A national ballot had fallen just short of the two-thirds majority then required under NUM rules. Rather than respect that outcome, Scargill - then NUM leader in Yorkshire - instigated wildcat strikes. The bar had been set ridiculously high, at a time when no other major union required any ballot at all, and was immediately revised down to 55 per cent.

Meanwhile National Coal Board chairman Lord Robens had been working to eradicate pit-head bargaining, whereby pay and conditions were negotiated at each of 600-plus individual collieries, sometimes pitching local workforces against each other. That had given Nottinghamshire miners the best rewards in the industry, thanks largely to the coalfield having the newest equipment and thickest coal seams. The switch to national pay structures required Notts miners to mark time while the rest of the industry caught up. As a result, the NUM - never previously strong - gained its biggest negotiating weapon: national collective bargaining. You could say it was Nottinghamshire's gift to the union.

Following the union's rules revision, members were balloted again in 1972. Fewer voted for a strike than in the previous ballot, but the required 55 per cent was narrowly exceeded. Many miners in Nottinghamshire had voted against, but in marked contrast with Scargill's earlier behaviour, every single one of them respected the outcome. The resulting strike was 100 per cent solid and led to the biggest settlement ever won through industrial action in the UK, then or now.

By 1984 Scargill was the national president. He had embarrassed himself with immediate calls for action - an overtime ban in Wales for instance - which attracted little support and achieved nothing. I'm sure it was those experiences that led him to wriggle out of a ballot for a national strike in 1984. And wriggle he did. Thanks to lightweight members of the national executive who had fallen under his spell and McGahey's unshakeable loyalty to the NUM and whoever was leading it, he got his way.

I was fortunate to count some on the left of the NUM leadership among my friends, including its leader in the militant Kent coalfield, Jack Dunn, and the former - and sadly late - general secretary Lawrence Daly. Likewise I have nothing but admiration for the NUM members in Nottinghamshire who stayed loyal. But I have always understood the position of those who refused to support a strike that had no mandate from the membership.

The result was a catastrophic episode for the trade-union movement, that divided families, and in my case divided me.