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Robert Bevan

Ex-miner Robert Bevan and residents of Tylorstown in the Rhondda remember 1984-1985, the legacy of the miners' strike and their hopes for a better future.

Robert tells us how "the strike was not just about the jobs at stake - entire communities, towns and villages were built around the coal industry ". When the strike ended a year later, more than 11,000 people had been arrested across Britain and, within just a few years, most of the pits had closed and tens of thousands of mining jobs were lost.

Robert is now a labour councillor for Tylorstown and believes that education and family support is the way forward for the young people in the community but he's bitter about what happened and concerned there's still no replacement industry in the area "I cannot help but feel bitterness towards those who have absolutely decimated my community and ruined the lives of many decent people on the altar of political ideology. Forget? Never! Forgive? Never!