Around 2,000 former miners and their families marked the 40th anniversary of the strike with a march and rally in Fife on Saturday.
Busloads of people from mining communities across Scotland and the north of England converged in Ballingry before parading through Crosshill to Lochore Meadows.
They then gathered at the site of the former Mary Pit to remember the legacy of the coal mining industry.
And they paid tribute to the 206 men in Scotland who were arrested and then sacked during the bitter dispute.
Among them was march organiser Andrew “Watty” Watson, who was one of the youngest to face charges and lose his job after an apparent breach of the peace.
His offence was to have “flicked the Vs” to a passing convoy of police cars, accompanying a van of miners who had returned to work.
Now 58, he was just 19 at the time and waited until last year to receive a pardon.
Miners’ fight for justice continues as loved ones remembered
Saturday’s two-mile march brought back memories for many in the Benarty community.
It followed the route of a similar rally in June 1984 when 3,000 people gathered during the miners’ strike in a bid to defend their jobs and their pits.
Watty was one of six Benarty men sacked during the strike.
And he and other organisers said it was important not to forget the dark period in the industry’s history.
While the Scottish Government issued pardons to those wrongfully convicted in 2020, they are still fighting for compensation.
And Watty says the fight for justice is ongoing.
Fellow march organiser Charlotte Copeland said many people were marching in memory of loved ones.
She said: “My dad was a miner and suffered a really bad injury.
“His dad before him was killed in the pit. Both of those were at the Mary Pit, the site of the rally.”
Fife miners’ march ‘a day to remember and celebrate’
Labour MSP Richard Leonard described it as “a day to remember those men and women who fought with courage and conviction”.
But he said it was also a day “to celebrate that they never broke our spirit and they never defeated our class.”
The Lochore Meadows rally was followed by an afternoon and evening of entertainment.
And volunteers even opened a soup kitchen in Lochore Miners Institute.
Donations were taken during the day for the save the cage campaign.
It aims to create an interactive mining experience at the Old Mary Pit Head winding tower.
A miners’ lift cage is being restored and the ambition is to also bring wagons, a coal cutter and buckets.
Conversation