ITV1
Gary Marsh’s dad was a miner, so was his grandfather and his great-grandfather before him.
But Gary isn’t a miner – he’s a smackhead.
Coal was once said to run through the veins of pit villagers, but now, for many of the youngsters who live in former mining communities, it’s heroin. Worksop, North Nottinghamshire has been affected more so than many other towns – ten addicts died there between 2002 and 2004.
Gary Marsh has been in and out of prison for the past few years, but dismayed at the collapse of the community she grew up in, his mum Donna is determined to fight the community decay, and get Gary clean. For the first time ever, Gary’s fighting back too. We follow Donna pleading to a Magistrate to grant Gary bail for stealing, pledging that she’ll make sure he stays clean, and from there, we see her struggle to keep her family together.
Donna wages her war against the drug that could kill her son with the same tenacity displayed in the miners' battle against Margaret Thatcher 20 years earlier.
Contrasting raw actuality with archive gathered during the strike, Children of the Miners’ Strike shows how the gritty humour and resilience that sustained pit communities through a year-long strike is now being used as a weapon in the war on drugs.