I agree with richd – I don't think there's much to celebrate. I was living in the Selby coalfield at the time and had previously been married to the daughter of a Nottinghamshire miner.

It was a brutal time, with Scargill's thugs making nightime visits to 'blacklegs', women fighting in school playgrounds and a general air of confusion and bewilderment. I blame the inflated egos of both Thatcher and Scargill, both of whom seemed to be more interested in their own positions rather than the fate of the mining industry. While miners' kids were going hungry (we would often invite my children's school friends back for some tea) Scargill bought himself an expensive new house which, I was told (by a miner), he put in his son's name. Thatcher was just a black-hearted bitch who didn't give a s**t about anyone.

And what was the outcome? Well, I pass Gascoigne Wood colliery (the site of the famous "battle of bull run") twice a day on the train. It's now been dismantled and is just a derelict brown-field site while, within sight of it, Drax power station runs on imported coal. In the end, the main victim was the UK mining industry.