It started with a plan. Not the plan for coal as it should have been. A plan to guarantee a secure affordable supply of electricity based on indigenous coal, safeguarding jobs in the mining industry, with coal-fired electricity generating industry and manufacturing in Britain as agreed between the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and government.

No, it was the Ridley plan. The plan to decimate the coalmining industry and other nationalised industries to pave the way for mass privatisation of the remnants. The Ridley plan that would allow Thatcher and her government to seek revenge on the miners, their union and the wider labour and trade union movement.

As a young lad who started in the mining industry in 1982 I, like most others, knew nothing of the Ridley plan.

I followed my father and grandfather into the pits. I remember the personnel manager saying: "You have a job for life here lad, watch what you are doing and do what you are told and there will be a job for your son in years to come."

In truth I was not looking that far ahead as my younger brother would soon be leaving school and expected to get a job in the pit, an ambition that seemed reasonable at that time.

Between 1982 and 1984 I followed what then seemed his good advice, and although there was a sense that things were changing it never crossed my mind that the pit would close.

I never noticed the overtime ban as there was not much overtime worked at Wheldale and my only experience of strikes was the odd shift for local disputes and a memory of gathering coal and wood for the fire with my father from the side of the railway lines in the 1974 strike.

For that reason the start of what would become known as the great strike of 1984-85 seemed like an adventure.

As a 17-year-old I was not political or active in the NUM. Life was simple - you supported others and they supported you.

That was what being in the NUM was all about. Others were facing the threat of their pit being closed for no good reason and were asking for our support.

There was no need for any more than a token picket as you don't cross a picket line no matter what.

I picketed throughout the strike in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, north Wales and Lancashire at the pits, power stations and workshops.

Every morning turning up at the strike centre to be given our picketing duty and the £1 picket money.

As the strike went on the sense of adventure I felt in the beginning faded away as I realised what we were fighting for - our jobs, communities and way of life.

A way of life that had existed for generations, though not unchanged, as some change had taken place with the introduction of mechanisation and improvements in safety standards.

These changes had increased production and lowered costs. They had also reduced the number of pits and miners required to work in them but it was a gentle change, allowing the older men to retire early and the younger men to transfer to other pits.

Getting to the picket lines got harder as the police put up roadblocks and turned everywhere into a police state.

You were no longer able to talk to the scabs and try to reason with them, as you were being held away behind a police line of riot shields.

The one notable exception to this new way of policing was at Orgreave where the police on the two days when I picketed there were, dare I say it, helpful - even going as far as giving directions for where to park up.

Although it seemed strange at the time it did not ring any alarm bells until the charge of the police light brigade happened. Us in our jeans and T-shirts with trainers on against riot police and mounted officers.

With the benefit of hindsight it was a set-up and for some of us the last straw. It was clear that the rule of law was no more and the police were an extension of the Thatcher government, intent not on preventing breaches of the law but preventing us from winning.

The 1984-85 strike was not an industrial dispute, it was a political dispute.

We were not fighting the National Coal Board, we were fighting Thatcher's Tory government with all the resources it had at its command.

I have the greatest respect for everyone who stood firm throughout the strike, especially in areas where they were in the minority. But I will never forget or forgive those who scabbed.

You do not need a ballot to do what is right. Make no mistake we were right when backed into a corner by Thatcher and Ian MacGregor. We had two choices, roll over or fight.

We made the right choice. If you fight you have a chance, no matter how slim, of winning. If you roll over they will walk all over you.

The release of cabinet papers in January this year only proved what we knew and there are more to come as this year goes on.

The strike was the only reaction to a vindictive act of industrial vandalism from an evil woman intent on imposing her capitalist ideal against decent ordinary working people.

The intention was to destroy the NUM that was the vanguard of the trade union movement and pave the way for a privatisation programme to line the pockets of the Tory elite.

A privatisation programme that has brought this country to its knees with private energy firms inflating the price of energy as only one example. There are many more.

The scabs should hang their heads in shame, but those of us that stood firm throughout the strike, the striking miners, our families and all those who supported us in the great strike of '84-85 can walk with our heads held high.

We fought for our union and to protect our way of life. There is no shame in that.

Chris Kitchen is general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers.