Tycroes politician Adam Price is set to go on a personal journey through the political storms of the 1984-85 miners' strike as part of a major new S4C documentary series.

The three-part series - Adam Price a Streic a Glowyr - starts on Tuesday, September 23 and looks at the year-long industrial dispute which started in March 1984 and ended almost exactly a year later, with the NUM miners returning to work to face massive colliery closures which changed hundreds of Welsh and British mining communities for ever.

The series is part of a season of S4C programmes which will include a starkly contrasting view of the Miners' Strike by the historian and author Hywel Williams.

For the 45-year-old former Plaid Cymru MP and prospective Plaid Cymru candidate for the Assembly seat of East Carmarthenshire and Dinefwr, the strike was a dispute that defined his political beliefs and deeply influenced his personal life.

"The strike represents one of the most important chapters in Wales’ recent history," said Adam.

"I tend to look at the strike from one perspective – a battle to safeguard employment in the area and defend a way of life and culture which meant so much to me, my family and community.

"For me, it was an inspirational time when Welsh communities defended our way of life against the power of the Tory Government.

"In this series, I turn back the clock and interview people whom I admired and hated at the time and see whether a fresh look at the history would change my opinion about the strike."

On his journey, he meets a wide array of politicians, union leaders, strikers and campaigners from Wales and the UK who were prominent during this bitter dispute which divided national opinion and hundreds of local communities. It ended with the miners returning to work and NCB Chairman Sir Ian MacGregor organising a massive pit closure programme with the full backing of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government.

Adam's emotional journal begins in his home village of Tycroes where he hears his parents’ story. His father, Rufus, was a miner at Betws Colliery and became a NUM flying picket during the strike, going to English collieries to man the lines.

His mother Angela was a prominent miners’ supporter in the Ammanford and Carmarthenshire area.

Adam meets a number of other Betws Colliery miners to find out how they feel about the strike 30 years on.

Along with his father’s close friend and fellow picket Harry Selwood, Adam visits the site of one of the bloodiest and definitive battles of the strike in June 1984 at the Orgreave Coking Plant near Sheffield.

Adam also looks at the role of NACODS – The National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers – who refused to go on strike in support of the NUM, thus helping to keep many pits open and safe.

A special invitation only screening will take place this Friday, September 19 at 7pm in Ammanford Miners' Welfare hall.

Adam Price - a Streic y Glowyr starts on S4C on Tuesday, September 23.