Sutton miner's daughter reflects on working-class life in new BBC miners’ strike documentary – 40 years on

Brought up on the Carsic Estate in Sutton, Lisa, 55, features as one of 15 people in the documentary speaking about life on the front line during the 1984-85 miners' strike.

Although Lisa, who turned 16 on the day the strike started, was the daughter of a miner and a trade unionist factory worker, she said she was far from a child and had to “grow up quickly” overnight.

Following the strike’s start in March 1984, she left school months earlier and got a job at the Pretty Polly factory in Sutton.

She said: “Working-class people are made to grow up a lot quicker.

“My dad was on strike, so my wages were going towards the household.

“Women have always played an active role in the community.”

Lisa, now a part-time senior sociology lecturer at Bedfordshire University, said the strike was not an isolated event but a product of an ongoing class war.

The 55-year-old, whose father, Ian MacLeod, worked at Silverhill Colliery, said she feels strongly about the role working-class women have always played in the community.

“It wasn’t some pivotal moment of women coming out of the kitchen and joining a picket line.

“Many of these women very political in their everyday lives,” she explained.

Lisa’s late mum, Gwen Macleod, was a leading figure in the Ashfield Women’s Support Group.

“My mam was a trade unionist, a socialist and loved her community and our family.

“Coal mining went back 200 years – its loss would have been the loss of any family member and many in our community had lost loved ones to the coal.

“We knew we were important, we kept the lights on – we were working class and proud.

“Surviving in this society as a working-class person is a political act in itself,” she added.

Lisa went on to attend university by taking an access course at 31 and worked hard to secure a BA, master's degree, and doctorate in sociology.

“The strike may have been forty years ago, but working-class communities are still feeling it to this day.

“And nothing has changed. We’re fighting the same old fight,” she added.

The documentary also includes Steve Beard who was one of 123 striking miners in Ollerton.

He said he fell out with his brother Andy Beard when Andy decided to go back to work in spring of 1984.

Working miner Les Saint from Nottinghamshire also features, as he said he felt the strike should have been decided by the ballot box and not on the picket line.

Tracy Wallis, a police officer and former miner from Ollerton who was interviewed, said he felt torn between two worlds.

He said he knew striking miners wouldn’t back down easily, but he also admitted that the police were used by the government and at times were overzealous.

Miners’ Strike: A Frontline Story produced by The Garden, part of ITV Studios, airs on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer on Sunday, February 18 at 9pm.