8. The Reckoning

Jonny Owen reaches the end of his highly personal exploration of the strike and finds out what happened afterwards.

Saddled with debt after a year with no wages, mining families now face the closure of their pits and the end of a whole way of life. Jonny asks whether the NUM was doomed to lose from the very beginning.

He sifts through the arguments about the lack of a national ballot being the union’s Achilles heel, and about the role Arthur Scargill played in it all. And he hears more about how Margaret Thatcher’s confrontation with the miners shaped life in Britain today.

Presenter: Jonny Owen Series Producer: Clare Hudson Executive Producer: Steve Austins Assistant Producer: Ffion Clarke Development Producer: Branwen Davies Sound Designer: Meic Parry Sound Editor: Adam Whalley Composer: Richard Llewellyn Series Consultant: Dr Ben Curtis

Strike is a Bengo Media Production for BBC Sounds