Strike Boy

BBC Radio 4 LW

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BBC Radio 4 FM

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Mark was 10 when the miners' strike took over his life. Forty years on, he goes back.

Mark Watson was 10 when the 1984 miners' strike took over his life. Forty years on, he wants to know what really happened and how it changed his community - and this country.

Mark Watson was 10 when the 1984 miners' strike took over his life. Forty years on, he wants to know what really happened and how it changed his community - and this country.

Lying in bed one night as a boy, Mark heard a massive roar, like a football crowd. He opened his bedroom window and saw a red glow in the distance where the noise was coming from. He jumped out of his window, onto the kitchen roof, and bolted out the back gate. Just a few hundred yards from his house, he was suddenly confronted with a mass of action - hundreds of police and pickets, shouting and shoving. He was hooked.

The son of a striking Nottinghamshire miner, Mark was caught in the middle of Britain's biggest ever industrial dispute. Ever since, he's wanted to make sense of the deeply-held views on all sides. Travelling the country, hearing tales of violence, desperation, and determination, Mark investigates the conflict that became a battle for Britain's soul - and its consequences today.

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

Strike Boy: 5. Women against Pit Closures

5. Women against Pit Closures

BBC Radio 4 - Strike Boy, 5. Women against Pit Closures

'Oh, are you a feminist now?' 'No, I'm an ordinary housewife with a brain.'

“'Oh, are you a feminist now?' No, I'm an ordinary housewife with a brain.”

Mark talks to his mum about life for them as the family of a striking miner during the strike of 1984-5, when he was an 11-year-old kid. He hears about the solidarity campaigns and support groups that provided them daily dinners and weekly food parcels - from as far away as Russia.

Travelling to another pit village in the north-east, Mark meets a miner’s wife who went from, in her words, “an ordinary housewife” to running a women’s support group, helping striking miners and their families, and speaking at rallies.

Archive: 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

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Strike Boy

5. Women against Pit Closures

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