Miner comes face to face with police officer who arrested him 40 years ago

• ITV Wales' Gwennan Campbell reports

A miner and the police officer who arrested him during strikes 40 years ago this week have been reunited.

That moment decades ago was captured by a young photo journalist documenting the turmoil of the time. Richard Williams caught the moment a miner was arrested as he tried to stop a bus of his colleagues from going to work.

Now the miner, Jeff Jones from Blaengarw, has come face to face with Mark Chinn, the officer who arrested him during the miners strike.

Wednesday marks 40 years since a strike started in south Wales, and other parts of the UK, which lasted just three days short of a year.

First Minister Mark Drakeford told ITV Wales the scars from the 1984-1985 strike "live on" to this day.

For Jeff, the wounds of that time still run deep. He said: "Yes there is some resentment there with regards to the police" and those who crossed the picket line.

He added: "That resentment will never, ever, go. As far as I'm concerned - and a lot of people would agree with me - once you're a scab [who returned to work] you're always a scab. You don't cross the picket line."

Even 40 years on, Jeff's view is one which is shared by a large number of people heavily involved in the strikes.

Richard Williams, who took the photo at the start of his career, has created a book of photos from the strike, alongside his colleague (and now wife) Amanda Powell.

Their book, 'Coal and Community in Wales - Images of the Miners’ Strike: before, during and after,' has been published ahead of Wednesday's significant anniversary, and shows Richard, as well as recounting the experiences of those shown in the photos.

His wife Amanda, who wrote the words to accompany Richard's work, said: “Every major anniversary has bought coverage and new information, and I think it has made us all realise just how momentous a period this was. It changed coal-mining communities for ever, and generally not in a positive way."

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Talking about his experience of the day he took the photograph of Jeff's arrest, Richard told ITV Wales: "I was 23 when the miners strike broke out. I was freelancing for the Glamorgan Gazette in Bridgend and we had a call into the office one day to say I miner had returned to work at the Garw Ffaldau Colliery.

"I called into the office, picked up the reporter, Amanda Powell, who later turned out to be my wife, and we travelled up to the Garw to be met by quite a scene really."

Reflecting on how he viewed the industrial action in the 1980s compared to now, former policeman Mark said: "Well looking back on it I enjoyed it, the miners strike, from the police point of view in that it was a big operation."

He added: "Really, looking back on it 40 years later, it was a terrible, terrible thing for the mining community and maybe that's how I should have looked at it at that time but I didn't actually realise at that time. I was 24. It was just an exciting bit of work."

However, Jeff said there was no bad blood between the two. Explaining what it was like to meet the officer who arrested him, he said: "It was strange. I don't hold any grudges to him personally because, it's awful to say, but he was doing his job, whether he liked it or not.

"I was doing it because I liked doing what I was doing. I was fighting for our existence."

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