With Pride drawing rounds of spontaneous applause in cinemas across the UK (it’s become this year’s The King’s Speech), here is a thorough and thought-provoking account of the history and legacy of the 1984/5 miners’ strike – one of the longest strikes in British history. “Being a miner in them times was like living politics, not talking it,” says one of the film’s contributors, who offer first-hand accounts of life on the front line.

From an extraordinarily upbeat “Be a Miner!” TV advert to harrowing scenes of the police charge at Orgreave, director Owen Gower mixes plentiful archive footage with contemporary interviews to cut through the media rhetoric about rioting pickets and paint an altogether more alarming portrait of a carefully orchestrated state crackdown. The failure of the TUC to to take decisive action in support of the miners is identified as a turning point, the film arguing convincingly it was the unions en masse that were Thatcher’s real target. Footage of the iron lady is juxtaposed with the steely resolve of Women Against Pit Closures, the miners’ wives becoming a potent political force who effectively redefined their social roles. Meanwhile, Mike Jackson of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners recounts the real-life story behind Pride, providing just one of a number of tear-jerking moments in this heartfelt, stirring still urgent account of a historic struggle.