IN both Joe Wellthorpe’s criticism of the miners (HAS, Oct 21) and Joseph Marley’s defence of them (HAS, Oct 25) the key issues are missed.

You can argue that both the miners and Margaret Thatcher’s Tory party of the day were responsible for the eventual loss of a once proud industry, but look a little deeper into our recent industrial history and you realise that Britain has lost all its stellar industries – shipping, steel, mining, car manufacture – to strike-happy unions and successive governments unable to halt this country’s decline.

As we have spent our time metaphorically moving deckchairs on the Titanic, Europe, Russia and China have taken over everything we once possessed. We are the laughing stock of the industrial world.

Mrs Edna Armstrong-Brooks, Darlington.