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

BBC Radio 4 LW

Strike Boy: 6. Policing Pickets

6. Policing Pickets

BBC Radio 4 - Strike Boy, 6. Policing Pickets

"I weren't right happy. I mean, they threw bottles and stuff and bricks at us."

"I weren't right happy. I mean, they threw bottles and stuff and bricks at us."

There was a lot of mistrust of the police among striking miners and their families in 1984, but what was it like for the police, bused across the country to protect the working miners who crossed picket lines?

When Mark was 11, he remembers a BBC crew coming to his Nottinghamshire pit village to report on the miners' strike that had taken over his life. With a striking miner for a dad, Mark felt like he was part of it. But the police were there too, and he’s never forgotten what happened when he got too close to the action.

Mark travels to West Yorkshire to meet a retired PC who spent the whole year policing the strike and was at the Orgreave coking plant near Sheffield, where the most violent clashes took place. He hears tales of shared pork pies, trousers-down sunbathing, and potatoes with six-inch nails in. 

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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6. Policing Pickets

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