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A mine of information

When Ralph Bernard met Arthur Scargill, Bernard was in the thick of making a documentary radio on the history of the coal industry, Down To Earth.

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Neil Cooper previews a new play about the life and times of miners’ leader Arthur Scargill

Scargill was the leader of the Yorkshire miners, and had yet to become president for life of the National Union of Miners (NUM).

That was in the 1970s, when industrial action could hold a government to ransom during a time when Britain’s “Winter of Discontent” was just around the corner.