I started in the pits in 1982, fresh from school in the only job I had ever wanted to do. I was proudly following in my father’s footsteps, as he had done with his.

I remember the personnel manager saying: “You have a job for life here lad, look after it, keep your head down, watch what you are doing and do what you are told and there will be a job for your son in years to come.”

Between ’82 and ’84 I followed what at the time seemed his good advice and although there was a sense that things were changing it never crossed my mind that the pit would close. There had always been a pit and for generations my family had always worked in it.

I never noticed the effects of the overtime ban as there was not much overtime worked at Wheldale. My only experience of strikes was the odd shift for local disputes or in support of others who had turned up at the pit gates asking for our support.

For that reason, the start of the great strike of ’84-85 seemed like an adventure. As a 17-year-old I was not politically active 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 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. 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, the chance for my brothers and someday maybe my own son to have the same option as I had to work down the pit.

Getting to the picket lines got harder as the police put up roadblocks to prevent us but that justified what we were doing. The more they tried to stop us, the more we knew that we were right.

The ’84-85 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 they had at their 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 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 win and will walk all over you.

The release of Cabinet papers in January 2014 proves what we knew and there are more to come I’m sure as the years go on. The strike was the only proper reaction to a vindictive act of industrial vandalism from an evil woman intent on imposing her capitalist ideal on decent ordinary working people.

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

This privatisation programme has brought this country to its knees with private energy firms inflating the price of energy as only one

example among many.

The scabs should hang their heads in shame, but those of us who stood firm throughout the strike, 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.

The deep-mined coal industry has been fighting for survival ever since, slowly losing ground as the years pass by and the mines have been closed.

There are only three deep-coal mines open and in production today, all of which have announced potential closure dates over the next 18 months.

This is at a time when Britain still produces over 30 per cent of its electricity from coal, most of which is now imported from Russia, Columbia and the United States.

The technology exists to decarbonise the electricity generation from coal and the British Government is set to invest up to £1 billion of taxpayers’ money to advance its implementation, thereby ensuring a secure, reliable source of low-carbon energy to supplement renewable generation.

Renewables have received far more government investment even though they are unpredictable as we have no control over when the wind will blow at the right speed.

We will be generating electricity for years to come from coal, and that should be British-mined coal retaining the jobs and skills in Britain.

To this end, the NUM has been pushing for and supporting a state aid application to extend the working life of the last three deep coal mines and if common sense prevails and the benefit of the UK is put first we should shortly be finding out that a state aid package has been approved.

When the strike ended my feelings at the time were pride that I had played my part and dread for what the future held. My feelings now are despair at how the industry has been decimated even though there is still a market for coal to generate electricity and the jobs that would have been created had the industry been given some assistance.

Chris Kitchen is proud to be the general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers