Loss of heritage is not an easy thing to reconcile, especially when the loss is relatively sudden and affects entire communities. Speaking personally I lost a great deal, including my marriage, which couldn’t withstand the pressure of long term employment uncertainty. In the years after the strike the world seemed to stop turning for a while, once thriving populations had the rug pulled out from beneath their feet leaving defeat and desperation etched across every face. Even with retraining, it was hard for ex miners to find secure work and I clearly remember a story circulating of an ex miner from a nearby community taking a shotgun into the forest to end his life rather than face a life without a job. The immediate effect of the loss of the pits was to push unemployment in the UK to 3.25 million at the same time the Yuppie revolution began in the cities. It is difficult not to think that Margaret Thatcher had no reason to decimate the industry as she did other than a stubborn will to prove a point and it’s noticeable that Ian McGregor didn’t stay around to witness it.