JIMMY TAYLOR (HAS, Mar 12) criticises Margaret Thatcher for taking on the National Union of Mineworkers and bizarrely praises miner’s wives for feeding their children.

It is the duty of all parents to feed and care for a child. It does not need a round of applause.

Perhaps he needs to take the rose-tinted glasses off, and look at the facts.

The miners went on strike in the mistaken belief they could hold the Government, and the country, to ransom yet again.

The strike failed and they were beaten.

The Prime Minister referred to then as “the enemy within”.

It cost them their industry.

Nobody would have been allowed to starve to death during the dispute. This is a civilised Western country.

The only death I recollect is that of taxi driver David Wilkie, a father of four, killed by striking miners, while going about his lawful business in 1984.

What an epitaph that made for their glorious strike.

Joe Wellthorpe, North Ormesby.