Strike for a Kingdom by Menna Gallie (Harper and Brothers 1959)

The miners' strike in 1926 lasted from May until December. Then the cold beat them. They came out demanding an increase in the minimum wage and the eventual nationalization of the industry. They were not troublemakers for the fun of it, they were not Marxists out to destroy Capitalism, they did not think of themselves as "one of the Factors of Production," but they felt they were poor devils having a raw deal and they had had enough. Their strike, for most of them, had little to do with economic theory. They were sick of working underground in the dark, getting silicosis and accidents galore for two quid a week - and this only for the lucky ones who were at work. On the dole a single man got seventeen bob a week. This was a strike of Oliver Twists, and the Owners had much in common with the Beadle.

Submarine by Joe Dunthorne (Random House 2008)

"Ah ha," Chips says, finding a page upon which he cameos. He adopts a whiny voice that is a bad impression of Zoe: "Jean who works breakfasts understands. She says that I am very mature for my age. She says that she has had a fluctuating waistline all her life and it's never done her any harm. She says that kids can be cruel. I told her I felt like crying in Geography when Chips said: 'I bet you eat your dinner off a tectonic plate.'" Chips looks up.

"I forgot I said that."

Aberystwyth Mon Amour by Malcolm Pryce (Bloomsbury 2001)

'So Bronzini and Llewellyn would have had plenty of enemies, and Brainbocs wouldn't say boo to a goose?'

'Just about. Although even Brainbocs had a few enemies.'

'Really?'

'Brainbocs got a Saturday job working at the rock factory - helping out in the R & D unit after hours. He became interested in the great age-old puzzle of rock manufacturing, called D Quincey's Theorem. It's very complicated, but basically it concerns the attempt to change the wording of the letters midway through the rock. You know, it starts off saying Blackpool and then after a few mouthfuls it says Zanzibar or something. It's one of the last great challenges of the rock-marker's art. And he cracked it. Just like that. Sat down with a pen and paper and a set of log tables and worked it out. So then the management make him head of R & D and within a week - and the kid is still in school, don't forget, hasn't even done his O levels - within a week he'd found a way of computer type-setting the letters. Saved a fortune: twenty old-timers were thrown out of work the same afternoon. Entire factory closes down on strike. The Unions say, "Get rid of the kid, or you'll never make another stick of rock in this town" So they fire the kid. His parting shot was forty cases of rock that said "Aberystwyth" and then after two mouthfuls read: "I've pissed in this rock".'