ABSTRACT
In Great Britain, the miners' strike of 1984-5 was one of the most violent and crucial industrial disputes of the late twentieth century: a crucial part of the struggle to subordinate Old Labour. Donald was born in 1944 into a Welsh mining family and first went into the mines when he was 16, working as an apprentice coalface worker and then joining a maintenance team. In 1969 he married a librarian, and they had what was to be their only child in 1976. Donald presented his life story from the perspective of his professional identity as a miner. Born in 1960, sixteen years younger than Donald, Harold also entered the mine as an underground worker at the age of 16. Harold's mother died when he was 11. Widowed, she had brought three children from her previous marriage to the new home with Harold's father, who was a miner.
