Miners

Since the end of the 1984-85 strike, the National Coal Board, now named British Coal, has brutally dismembered the mining industry. At the beginning of the strike there were 170 pits and a labour force of 187,000. In 2005 only 9 collieries remain and 3,000 miners. It wasn't just jobs that were lost. Whole communities died too. These photographs from South Wales and South Yorkshire (and the Littleton colliery photographs), acknowledge the workers who fuelled the wealth of the UK. A culture and communities were wiped out by a vicious and paranoid Tory government which was bent on revenge at any cost.

Celebrated in photographs ­ Miners