Sometimes things happen in the past and they just get forgotten. However sometimes, events happen that change a nation and a way of live and should never be forgotten for the impact that after 25 years, is still very much felt today.
As part of today’s BBC Radio 2 ‘2Day’ special programming, the BBC repeated (albeit at 5 past midnight – was that an conscious decision?) the Ballad of the Miners Strike.
It had been originally broadcast sometime ago, but was referred to a number of time on today’s Jeremy Vine/Dermot O’leary ‘Top of the Docs’ program about radio documentaries as being available to listen to again on the BBC iPlayer.
As I had not been able to stay up till 1am t0 listen to the whole program (am I now getting too old for ‘all-nighters’?) I also wanted to listen to it again. Imagine my annoyance when I found that the program was blanked out from being accessed on the BBC iPlayer website – interesting that it was the only program not available!
Anyway, after five tweets (two to the live chat of the ‘2Day’ program), two emails and four phone calls around the BBC Phone Labyrinth, the BBC ‘unblocked’ the link to the program and it is now available for listening again.
The Ballad of the Miners’ Strike is a musical exploration of how lives were forever changed by the year-long miners’ strike. With specially commissioned songs and interviews with people involved in the strike both then and reflectively now. However, a friend intimately involved in the strike at the time, says that the BBC did not collect as many views for the original documentary as they perhaps could have.
It’s a powerful piece of Radio broadcasting and another demonstration that despite the ever increasing ‘Digital’ world that we live in, Radio still remains an amazing medium for conveying passion and the importance of verbal recollection.
Listen to it, understand what happened and reflect to some degree on a slice of UK life that has forever disappeared.
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