![]() It's a novel replaying the circumstances of the 1980s miners' strike from the point of view of the men underground. Mr MacNeil Wilson has evidently spent considerable time researching this book and writing it from his own personal experience. As the strike develops the pace accelerates – and the last part is a rip-roaring adventure that keeps you riveted, right to the end. This affectionate record of that extraordinary way of life has moments of hilarious comedy to balance some tragic dramatic events and developments. Although I was expecting the novel to portray pretty much a ‘man’s world’, there’s some really strong female personalities portrayed who play key parts in the tale with some of the characters’ stories intertwining with Dickensian twists. The characters are believable and engaging, some larger than life – but that’s probably what miners could be like. With the last of Britain’s deep mines having closed, The Enemy Within will provide the lasting and definitive picture of what it was like to work in the country’s deep mines in the late Twentieth Century the conditions, the culture and the comradeship. The account of the challenges faced underground before, during and after the Strike give a fascinating insight into what it was like to work down there. By the time you have read the account of the Battle of Orgreave, you will know why it was given that name. As they struggle their way through the strike I gained a real understanding of the history of the Strike from the author’s balanced treatment of the event. The action takes place in two fictitious pit villages, one in the South Midlands the other in Barnsley, the latter being home to a crew of flying pickets. When the Miners’ Strike breaks out the book covers the human drama of the impacts on relationships, far better than any soap opera. Jim, a young mining engineer and colliery manager, and Paul, a fitter, face formidable challenges underground at Whitacre Heath, a fictitious pit village and mine. Two miners play their parts in trying to save not just their colliery but their industry. ![]() Just as the miners did in real-life, the action switches between underground, surface and external environments. ![]() Like “The Stars Look Down”, the novel is set in two different worlds the underground world of Britain’s collieries and the surface world of its mining communities. Set in the mid-1980’s, a time of tumultuous change for Britain. Exciting and at times heart-wrenchingly moving, the story will keep you turning the pages to find out what happens to Jim, Mad Jack, little Martin and the rest of the characters as they each, in their own way, deal with the twists and turns that this amazing adventure throws at them. The novel intertwines the loves and lives of a mining community with the challenges the industry faced to survive. What a great story an intriguing drama set against the back drop of a significant time in modern history. ![]()
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