Mention the death of Margaret Thatcher in one of the “working men’s clubs” frequented by former coal miners in northern England, and you will be met with roars of approval.
It has been 28 years since her Conservative government crushed the miners’ year-long strike, ending one of the most bitter industrial battles in British history.
But in the South Yorkshire village of Armthorpe and others like it, the anger remains as visceral as ever.
“Good riddance!” shouted one former miner from a corner of Armthorpe’s dingy club, where men with weathered faces and tattooed fingers sat nursing pints on Tuesday.
On a table, the face of Britain’s first and only female prime minister beamed out from the front page of a discarded newspaper, a day after she died at age 87.
