'Once a miner always a miner' reads the sign hung on the wall in Derek Doherty's living room. The 66-year-old was just a teenager when he followed his dad and grandad down the pit at Golborne Colliery in Wigan.
As an underground fitter he had a good job and a trade he could fall back on. But, 40 years ago this week, he would make a decision which would change his life forever.
On March 5, 1984, miners at Cortonwood Colliery near Barnsley, South Yorks, walked out in protest at the proposed closure of the pit.
It was the start of the Miners Strike, the longest and most bitter industrial dispute in British history. Read more: 'Conditions were atrocious, but we loved it': What it was like to work down Bradford Pit - Manchester's lost, great coal mine Read more: Coal queen Rita and the lost world of the 'Pit Brow Lasses' The next day it was announced 20 pits were set for closure.
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