13 years after the Tories tried to take away miners jobs, life and community at Tower Colliery on the grounds that the pit wasn't 'profitable' the last lump of coal really has been finally mined.
In 1994, Michael Heseltine, President of the Board of Trade, Margaret Thatcher then Prime Minister and British Coal bosses told the miners that they and their pit were no longer of use.
Labour MP Ann Clwyd went underground with the miners to stage a sit-in. She emerged dusty-faced carried on the shoulders of the miners. She recalls Michael Heseltine saying to her at Westminster that she should tell the miners to throw in the towel. "I replied: 'Tell them yourself,'" she says.
The miners knew better and used their redundancy pay to buy their pit which they have since run successfully.
On Friday 25th January 2008 they worked the pit for the last time and marched away on their own terms with their heads held high, a triumph of the human spirit over ideology and greed.
Watch interviews with the miners on their last day on YouTube
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