Remembering Miners' Strike 35 years on in Sunderland: Feelings still running high after more than three decades

This picture was taken at Wearmouth Colliery, now the site of the Stadium of Light, during the Miners' Strike in 1984. | JPIMedia

It is now 35 years since the end of the Miners’ Strike of 1984/85, but feelings still run high over the bitter dispute.

It lasted almost exactly a year and caused divisions within communities, even within families, that have not healed to this day.

More than half the country's 187,000 miners left work in what was the biggest industrial dispute in post-war Britain.

The ill-feeling between striking and non-striking miners would last lifetimes in some cases.

This was the scene when NUM leader Arthur Scargill leader visited Easington in 1984 | JPIMedia

For decades, coal mining in the UK was the backbone of the economy, not least in the North East, employing hundreds of thousands of people.

In 1981 the country was producing 128million tonnes of coal a year. Today only a handful of pits remain. Ironically, the strike was about pit closures.

The two sides were the Government and the National Union of Mineworkers, headed respectively by Margaret Thatcher and Arthur Scargill; political polar opposites but equally committed.

We received the following comments in response to our feature about the strike.

This March went along Mowbray Road in July 1984. Dennis Skinner MP is in the front, centre. Two along from Mr Skinner with the beard is Bob Clay, MP for Sunderland Clay. | JPIMedia

Ann Lusby said: “Still breaks my heart watching anything to do with this. My brother, who was a single man at the time, gave his mate Christmas presents for his kids, food and helped with his bills, then his mate scabbed. They never spoke again. Broke families apart.”

Kevin Leary said: “The miners lost a lot of support using flying pickets and not having a (national) ballot.

“Scargill deliberately used communist Kent branch to come out, then abused the decency of union members to fight a political battle he was never going to win.”

Gary Duncan said: “The miners were heroes! How many sections of the working class have taken on the government in such a militant style? Absolute legends every one of them.”

David Almond asked: “Did the miners HAVE to go on strike? Did the government or police close the gates so the well paid workers couldn’t get in?This needs to be left from where it came.”

Rob Shields said: “If it wasn't for the Nottingham and pit deputy scabs, the miners would have won.”