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 FM

Strike Boy: 10. Legacy

10. Legacy

BBC Radio 4 - Strike Boy, 10. Legacy

'Some of the mindset from the past is gone. It's smaller - my family comes first.'

'Some of the mindset from the past is gone. It's smaller - my family comes first. With that, political attitudes change.'

"Some of the mindset from the past is gone. It's smaller - my family comes first. With that, political attitudes change."

Forty years on from the miners’ strike, Mark’s back in the village where his dad was a miner who stopped work for an entire year. The miners’ welfare institute and majestic pitheads have gone - and that’s not all that has changed.

Trying to understand the political legacy of the strike, Mark goes to meet the area’s MP, an ex-miner who’s been on a political journey that mirrors how voting there has shifted in recent years. Are that change and the strong support for Brexit in the area connected to the demise of coal mining? And Mark tries to find a piece of his dad’s mining heritage that’s gone missing.

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

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10. Legacy

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