Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"After 51 weeks, the National Union of Miners (NUM) finally called off its national strike.… But this could not disguise the scale of the defeat of the most powerful trade union in Britain, one that in 1974 had brought down the Conservative government.… The consequences of defeat were severe. Within 20 years an industry employing 187,000 miners was reduced to just 6 collieries, employing less than 4000." [1001 Days]