but it is all related baggy

the point is that the miner's strike occurred at a time when we the UK was transitioning to a service economy driven by the middle class, and where we stopped wanting to get our hands dirty and instead outsourced that to others around the world where it was cheaper and out of sight.

Now we have the situation where we are no longer able to fix floors, taps or bulbs ourselves and have to hire in the skills but we are well enough off to be able to afford this. Unfortunately we have gone so far down this road there aren't enough skilled people around and we have to spend our time searching for them on forums like this.

Thus searching for trades(wo)men is a continuation of your debate.

Having said that, I was too young to really get involved in those debates at the time (weren't you?), so it may be my own middle class view of history - I know that theme appears regularly in your comments here

... and continuing with that point of view, I have never understood those who call for strikes in the face of cost-cutting job losses. What madness is it to exacerbate the losses of your business/industry/country? You simply encourage them to speed the process of finding alternatives to your labour and make it more likely people will be laid off.

Oh dear, my white collar is getting rather smudged. Must lie down.