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: 7. Battle-Weary

7. Battle-Weary

BBC Radio 4 - Strike Boy, 7. Battle-Weary

"He fetched truncheon down on the lad's top of his head. He went, whack! It haunts you."

"He fetched truncheon down ont the lad's top of his head. He went, whack! I witnessed that and it haunts you."

"He fetched truncheon down on the lad's top of his head. He went, whack! I witnessed that and it haunts you."

The son of a striking Nottinghamshire miner, Mark is meeting people from all sides of the 1984-5 strike, trying to make sense of Britain’s longest and bitterest industrial dispute.

On 18 June 1984, clashes between police and striking miners at the Orgreave coking plant near Sheffield became the most violent flashpoint of the strike. Mark hears from a picket who was there that day about how much was planned, what they did to try to scupper the police and the coal lorries - and the violence on both sides.

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

7. Battle-Weary

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