I n September 2010, the writer Stephen Beresford was about to leave a meeting with film producer David Livingstone when he was asked: 'Is there any story you are burning to write?' 'Well, there is one,' he replied, hesitating at the door, 'but no one is ever going to make it.' He acknowledges now that this is a line you can only use once in a pitch and explains that he went on to tell the story of miners in the Dulais valley in South Wales during the 1984-5 strike – the longest in British history – and a gay and lesbian group from London that donated more money (£11,000 by December 1984) to their cause than any other fundraiser in the UK, along with a minibus emblazoned with the logo LGSM: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners.
