“We were the vanguard of the trade union movement, and we'd got to be eliminated.”

When Mark was just 10, he found himself slap bang in the middle of what would become Britain’s longest and bitterest industrial dispute - the miners’ strike of 1984-5. Growing up in the Nottinghamshire pit village of Stanton Hill, Mark’s dad was a local union leader and backed the strike from the start, in an area where most miners carried on working.

But, until now, Mark’s never really had a proper conversation with his dad about what happened that year, the different forces at play, and the decisions he took.

Archive: AP Archive (shouting pickets); 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