Strike Boy

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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

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Strike Boy: 4. Flying Pickets

4. Flying Pickets

BBC Radio 4 - Strike Boy, 4. Flying Pickets

'I'm not saying I'm proud of what I did, but I reverted to guerrilla warfare.'

“I'm not saying I'm proud of what I did, but I reverted to guerrilla warfare."

Flying pickets were striking miners who travelled to different pits trying to get working miners to join them on strike. Because most Nottinghamshire miners worked, miner’s son Mark’s home village was full of pickets with different accents, hurling insults and scrapping with police.

Forty years on, Mark goes to South Yorkshire to meet a flying picket who spent the year of the 1984-85 strike dodging police road-blocks, shouting at working miners, and ambushing buses. He tells Mark about the things he did that year that he wouldn’t dream of doing now.

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

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