A £1.3 billion pit complex with mines at Riccall, Wistow, Stillingfleet, Whitemoor and North Selby near Escrick, opened in 1983, but within a year, up to 97 per cent of Yorkshire’s miners had walked out as part of a national strike.

On March 6, 1984, the head of the National Coal Board, Ian McGregor, announced plans to cut production, the equivalent of 20 pits or 20,000 jobs, and the miners walked out as part of a 12-month strike they hoped would save their industry.

After the strike, the field went on to break European production records, but UK Coal later declared the seams were fractured and too difficult to mine.

Selby District Councillor Steve Shaw-Wright took part in the miners’ strike at the Riccall pit in 1984 to 85, and said Lady Thatcher’s legacy was still visible around the north of England.

He said: “The effects of what she did are still felt in the north today in a lot of ex-mining towns, which still haven’t recovered. She’s left swathes of this country without hope, without jobs, for two or three generations.

“It’s sad that a little old lady has died, but it’s nothing to do with me.”