AS we reported last week, it is 40 years since the start of the 1984 Miners strike - a year-long struggle between Arthur Scargill's NUM and the National Coal Board that came close to tearing the nation apart.

It pitted miners and mining communities against the police and the government, in a struggle that in many ways came to define the Margaret Thatcher era.

Selby miners played their part in the strike; picketing their own mines in the Selby coalfield and also acting as 'flying pickets' elsewhere - including at Orgreave.

York Press: When push comes to shove: police trying to force back pickets at the entrance to the North Selby mine as contractors arrived for work in June 1984When push comes to shove: police trying to force back pickets at the entrance to the North Selby mine as contractors arrived for work in June 1984 (Image: Yorkshire Evening Press)

There was also the famous 'siege of Selby', where miners used cars to blockade Selby Toll Bridge and bring the town to a virtual standstill.

Photographers from the Yorkshire Evening Press were on hand throughout the year if the strike to record some of the most dramatic happenings.

Click on our gallery to see their record of that momentous year...