Former miners have spoken out amid the accolades and praise for Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady blamed by many for the closure of the Kent Coalfield during the 1980s.
Terry Birkett from Deal, who worked at Betteshanger Colliery and was sacked during the 1984-85 Miners Strike, said: “The woman was detested. I am not shedding any tears.”
He was a committee member of the National Union of Mineworkers and sacked during the industrial dispute at Betteshanger, along with other workers, less than five years before production ended at the colliery, which became the last Kent pit to close in 1989.
A one time a labour force of almost 6,000 men worked at the pits in the Kent Coalfield at Betteshanger, Tilmanstone which closed in 1986, and Snowdown which shut a year later (Chislet was the first pit to stop production in 1969, 10 years before Mrs Thatcher became Prime Minister).
After Baroness Thatcher’s death on Monday at The Ritz in London, Mr Birkett, 74, said some people considered her a good woman.
“I certainly did not and those miners at Betteshanger sacked in the Miners Strike certainly did not. She is absolutely the only person to blame for the closure at Betteshanger. She had no sympathy whatever with the miners and she was a very vindictive lady."
Ron Kempshall, also from Deal, was a former member of the National Union of Mineworkers and worked at Betteshanger Colliery.
He said Baroness Thatcher had decimated the trade union movement.

See the souvenir special, Margaret Thatcher - loved and loathed in East Kent, in this week's East Kent Mercury and Dover Mercury - out tomorrow.