In early 2014, I went to South Yorkshire to find Arthur Scargill. It was the 30th anniversary of the miners’ strike that had begun in 1984 – a good opportunity, it seemed, to write about that huge episode’s legacy, and to try to make contact with the former president of the National Union of Mineworkers.
In and around the town of Barnsley, I spoke to some of his friends, associates and adversaries – and then, just before I left for home, I had the briefest of encounters with the man himself. Using a knocker in the shape of a miniature miner’s lamp, I rapped on the door of a stone-clad house on a quiet back road – and suddenly, there he was. Seeing him in the flesh brought on a sudden feeling of awe; for a moment, I was lost for words. But then I explained what I had been doing, and said it would have been remiss of me not to try to make contact.
