By the end of the strike over 11,000 miners had been arrested and over 8,000 charged with disorderly conduct.
It was only a matter of time before someone died.
Soon enough, reports circulated of someone dropping a breeze block off a bridge on the motorway and killing a taxi driver taking scabs to work in Wales. I was horrified. By the time the strike ended the death count was ten, including six picketers and three teenagers searching for coal on the spoil heaps.
For me as the wife of a miner trying hard to hang on to some semblance of normality and not lose hope, the greatest tragedy was the slow degradation of the community; the change in the people driven to out of character acts by sheer desperation. I could understand, even find justification though it saddened me, for acts of random violence by the menfolk, spilling the blood of brothers and sons as the dispute drove a stake into the heart of family over differing opinion. Every man wanted to appear strong, but there comes a point where strength is found in self- belief and defiance of a force that seeks to rule without consideration of consequence. But these were the men, not the women, who hovered in the background working tirelessly to keep mind, body and family together. And they were certainly not the children, who might repeat what they hear, but in innocence of what it all meant.