We're marching for our children's jobs - determination and defiance in Nottinghamshire.

To the sound of a brass band, miners and their supporters march with banners and placards in Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. Questions put to the marchers reveal the strength of feeling in the crowd, as people stress the fight is for their children's and grandchildren's employment prospects as well as the economic future of their area. Though they express confidence that the strikers will be victorious, one miner criticises the media coverage, saying that the dispute is primarily a fight for jobs but is portrayed as a political battle between the NUM president Arthur Scargill and the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Others talk about the lack of solidarity in the mining community, the strike being a bitterly divisive issue in the East Midlands. The march through Mansfield ends in a rally, where Arthur Scargill addresses the crowd. Continued in 'Miners and supporters at the Mansfield rally'.

On 6th March 1984, the National Coal Board announced that it intended to close 20 pits in Britain, the first being Cortonwood Colliery in South Yorkshire. This announcement was the catalyst for the miners' strike which lasted for a year. When Arthur Scargill, President of the National Union of Mineworkers, called for the strike against pit closures, there had been no national ballot of NUM members. This, some claimed, made the strike technically illegal. From the start, the industrial action was hard-fought, sometimes violent, and often bitterly divisive, as in Nottinghamshire, where some miners continued to work despite calls for solidarity. There was much support for the strikers within their own communities, with women setting up local action groups to provide food and other necessities for families facing real hardship. Elsewhere, miners from the South Wales collieries gave their full support, and the strike received international media coverage with Christmas presents for the children of striking miners being sent over from Europe. The country's coal stocks were high, however, and without strong support from other large trade unions, the strike could not continue indefinitely. On 3rd March 1985, the NUM's National Executive voted narrowly in favour of calling an end to the action. The miners returned to their workplaces, marching proudly behind their banners and with the support of their families. The failure of the strike was followed by a programme of pit closures carried out by the Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher, causing huge upheaval in mining areas where the coal industry had been the major source of employment for local workers. In these areas the effects of the miners' strike can still be felt today.