"It was one of the most awful decisions I had to make in my political life. But there was no other choice."

Mark was 11 during the miners’ strike of 1984-5 when his dad, George, was a striking Nottinghamshire miner. George went back to work when the strike ended, but in 1992, it was announced his pit would finally close for good. What did George make of protests from colleagues who didn’t join the strike? What’s it like being the last in a long line of miners?

Mark asks Michael Heseltine about the decision to close the pits in the early 1990s, and hears about positive impacts of the strike from the miner’s wife outside Durham who was politicised by the dispute.

Archive: ThamesTV (Silverhill Colliery closure); 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