Well it seems we're coming up to the 25th anniversary of the miner's strike.  Already? blimey I left school the year after with no hope of getting a job EVER! thanks Mrs T.. 

I've got lots of personal memories about the event, coal picking, soup kitchens etc. My dad wasn't a miner - but he did work in a mining related trade so the strike effected us almost as much as my friend who's dads were out of work, with no income coming in. I still remember during the summer holidays - we'd have to break off what we were doing (usually hanging out at Vale Head Park) while my friends went up to the local middle school to get their free meals.  

I also remember stories of the police pulling so called agitators out of the local pubs too on an evening, allegedly to give them a hard time to try and make them think twice about leading the strike.

But one story which always brings a smile to my face happened, so I've been told on the picket line at the soon to be closed South Kirkby Colliery, during the winter months there'd been a fall of snow, the picketers had built some snowman in their lines, as a sort of joke reinforcement.  A policeman spotted this and ordered them to knock them down, "you're not here to have fun" was the reason given.  The miners refused, so a second warning was given, "knock them down or we'll run them down in the panda car".  Again the miners - now laughing to themselves refused. So the policemen went to carry out their threat, giving the car quite a lot of revs they sped towards the line of snowmen. There was a crash and a rather satisfying crunch as the panda car ended up beached on one of the concrete bollards the snowmen had been built over..  Apparently the miners refused to help remove the car too.