'We just wanted to carry on mining': What the strike which changed Britain meant for our miners - and what it says about the 'summer of discontent'

Paul Kelly was just 18-years-old when he went he first went down the pit. As the son and grandson of miners, coal was a way of life in his family.

On his first day at work at Agecroft Colliery in Salford he joined the National Union of Mineworkers. Just six years years later he would take a stand that would come to define his life.

On March 5, 1984, miners at Cortonwood Colliery near Barnsley, South Yorks, walked out in protest at the proposed closure of the pit. It heralded the start of Miners Strike, the longest and most bitter industrial dispute in British history.

Read more: Inside Greater Manchester's summer of strikes as thousands of workers walk out

The following day the government announced 20 pits were earmarked for closure. Strikes were called at mines across Yorkshire, then, on March 12, NUM president Arthur Scargill called for national action, beginning nationwide strikes.

At Agecroft, which stood roughly on the site where Forest Bank prison is today, a mass meeting was held in the pit canteen after the day shift knocked off at 2pm. A show of hands was called, and a majority voted to walk out.

But, across the Lancashire coalfield, an official ballot was held which saw the miners narrowly voting to stay in. Amid tense scenes outside the pit gates that saw a stand-off between striking miners and police, many Agecroft men refused to cross the picket line.

Paul, then just 24 and living with his partner and their baby son in Higher Broughton, wouldn't go back to work for more than a year. After his four weeks of strike pay ran out he was left to rely on the help of family, friends and Salford women's refuge. It placed an enormous strain on his personal life.

"We were called militants and the 'enemy within', but