THOUSANDS of Gwent miners never returned to work after the bitter year-long miners' strike, a report revealed today.

On the 20th anniversary of the strike's end, a study by Sheffield Hallam University says 90,000 mining jobs lost across the UK since the early 80s have yet to be replaced.

And 20,000 of these are estimated to be in South Wales - which is said to be lagging behind other coalfield areas in terms of bringing in new employment.

That comes as no great shock to the last two miners to leave Markham Colliery, David Craddock and Don Pearce.

"They are trying to bring jobs here, but they are not well paid jobs," says Mr Craddock. "The biggest employer in the village now is Markham Miners' Welfare with 24 people on the books."

Mr Craddock and his pal and former colleague Mr Pearce speak highly of the role which that miners' welfare played during the year-long strike, before it ended on March 3, 1985.

"We were having to go without and just surviving on the bare essentials," said Mr Pearce. "The miners' welfare was giving out parcels and we were thrilled if we got a tin of corned beef or a bag of sugar in them.

"We lived mostly on eggs and bread and potatoes - chips all the time. There was definitely no roast at the weekends."

Mr Craddock, who had two children to support, added: "Without the miners' welfare we wouldn't have survived - it was the hub, the boiler room."

Both men, who still live in Markham, were safety men - Mr Pearce in the pit head baths and Mr Craddock in the medical centre - and had to be at the mine every third week during the strike.

During the rest of the time, however, they helped man picket lines at collieries all over the country.

"We had a couple of scabs and it was hard working with those people afterwards. It was a very sad part of it," said Mr Craddock

Nine months after the strike, the last coal was brought out of Markham. Neither Mr Craddock nor Mr Pearce worked again.

* RESEARCH published to mark the 20th anniversary of the end of the miner's strike says tens of thousands of jobs lost through pit closures have still not been replaced.

The report from Sheffield Hallam University says 90,000 coal jobs still have to be replaced in England and Wales.

It says former mining areas such as South Wales are lagging "badly" behind other regions -- and that many of the new jobs offer worse pay.

The researchers, led by Professor Stephen Fothergill, said there was a recovery under way and the pace was quickening.

But only 60 per cent of coal job losses in England and Wales since the early 1980s have been replaced by new jobs.

The authors also said that a big rise in incapcity benefit claimants pointed to extensive "hidden" unemployment.

A Welsh Assembly spokesman told the Argus that 122,000 new jobs have been created in Wales since the Assembly came into being in 1999.

"Unemployment is also now at its lowest levels since January 1975," he said.

"We certainly feel we have dealt with the scourge of mass unemployment but we are not complacent."