The pit dispute of 1984 was a bitter clash between two political heavyweights – Margaret Thatcher and Arthur Scargill. Caught in the middle were ordinary people who lived in mining communities. DAVID LOWE and DELIA MONK report from Cotgrave to assess the impact on one such Notts village.

MAY Day 1984 – the date is etched into ex-miners' union official Brian Walker's memory.

It was, he says, a pivotal day in the pits strike which marked the beginning of the end for the dispute, the industry ... and the National Union of Mineworkers' power base.

Mr Walker, then branch secretary at Newstead Colliery, was attending an area meeting at the NUM's Berry Hill HQ in Mansfield, when it was besieged by a huge crowd of Notts miners supporting a return to work.

"We went out on to the balcony to speak to them. There must have been more than a thousand. It was very intimidating, some were throwing stones at us and one of my friends, standing next to me, was hit in the mouth," remembered Mr Walker, who lives in Arnold.

"It was an organised demonstration. We found out later that the coal board had provided transport and given the men a rest day to attend."

Mr Walker believes that as May Day loomed, the Tory government was on the verge of acceding to the NUM demands that pit closures should only go ahead if reserves were exhausted. But the invasion of union headquarters by the "back to work brigade" changed their thinking.

"We knew, from that day, we were in for a long haul. And the longer it went, the more difficult it became. Public opinion turned, we were running out of money, some miners had to be allowed to go back to work because they were in danger of losing their homes.

"If the strike had been solid, we would have won, no doubt about it.

"But the people who went back enabled the pits to close and they cannot equate that with the social problems we face today."

From that May Day in 1984, the striking miners faced a losing battle which would end with a fatal union split in Notts and the creation of the Union of Democratic Mineworkers.

"The split was sickening," said the former union man.

Brian Walker, 80 now, has been out of the industry for more than 20 years but he is still passionately interested in issues of the day.

He is articulate and intelligent, informed and opinionated, decisive to the point of dogmatic.

He speaks eloquently on a wealth of subjects, his words delivered in a distinctive Lancashire accent.

As he surveys the country's current social and economic turmoil, Brian Walker says much of it could have been avoided if the coal industry had been spared.

"With modern technology, coal could still provide answers to many of the nation's woes. There are huge reserves of coal that have hardly been touched.''