Bücher von Mike Padgett

Set in the fictional former mining village of Brodworth some ten years after the closure of the local pit, SCRAP tells the story of fifty-year old former miner Phil Steele's attempt to once again earn an honest living and recover his pride and dignity. Phil is still struggling to find a new purpose in life following the closure of the pit and fears being thrown on the scrapheap. He is not the man he was and this is affecting his family. His wife, Deb, is frustrated and is pursuing her own dream of owning and running a café, with or without his support. His unemployed son, Gav, has shown little interest in joining a father-son plumbing business, preferring instead to earn 'easy' (probably illegal) money with his mates doing 'a bit of this and a bit of that'. Phil clings to the past, as a member of a mining community, by retreating to his garage to work on his classic BSA Golden Flash motorbike - a restoration project he started just weeks before the miners' strike began. The bike is the last remaining symbol of the hope, pride and dignity he had as a young miner. Now, in the final week of his training course, he has a violent encounter with an old enemy from his days on the picket line. This leads Phil to acknowledge that his inability to move on from his past life has made him self-centred and endangered his own and his family's safety.

A travel memoir telling the story of how three working-class lads set off on a journey from Barnsley to Australia in a converted van in 1973.