“We'd been beaten by militancy before. We were not going to be beaten again.”

Two firebrands dominated the national stage during the miners’ strike of 1984-5: NUM leader Arthur Scargill and prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Back then, as an 11-year-old miner’s son, Mark just knew that his family were on Scargill’s side and Thatcher was against them.

Now Mark wants to know what was behind the government’s plan to close pits and take on the unions. To find out, he meets one of Margaret Thatcher’s top ministers, Michael Heseltine. Were union leaders really the “enemy within”?

Archive: Kinolibrary (Arthur Scargill speech); BBC.

Presenter: Mark Watson
Series Producer: Simon Maybin
Editor: Clare Fordham
Sound mix: James Beard
Production Co-ordinator: Ellie Dover
Commissioning Executive: Tracy Williams
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke Show less