He felt a push on the back, fell to the ground and was arrested.
This is the moment which triggered Councillor Jim McMahon to lose faith in the police and, eventually, the judiciary as a young man.
As a 23-year-old dad living in Cumnock, he joined the miners’ strikes for what he describes as a battle for the “community.”
Jim, 60, who worked at Killoch Colliery, headed to the picket lines in March 1984 to protest against potential pit closures by Margaret Thatcher's government.
Like hundreds of others, he ended up with a criminal conviction.
Standing in the shadow of the Barony A-Frame where he trained aged 18, Jim recalls: “I was arrested at Hunterston power station in May 1984. I could remember it like it was yesterday.
“I was talking to the police officer and suddenly his attitude changed. A shove came from the back. I fell. I was arrested, led to a van and my photograph was taken.”
Jim landed in the dock at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court with lawyer Roy Penny representing him. He was charged with breach of the peace.
The solicitor accused Sheriff Smith of stating publicly beforehand that he intended to 'hammer' the miners in court.
Mr Penny said the sheriff should not judge the case in light of the accusation of stating his intentions before the hearing.
Jim says: “My lawyer was a brave man. I was the first miner in front of the sheriff.
“I was fined £150. In 1984, that was a lot of money. The average breach of the peace was £20.”
Jim says one of the police officers corroborating evidence in court was not even present when the so-called offence occurred.
He was accused of using offensive language and calling a police officer a fascist – which Jim said was made up.
The grandfather-of-four says: “I felt anger at being arrested for what I deemed as my right to protest.
“Times have moved on since then and I’m glad to say, with the passing of time, the respect I once lost for the police and the judiciary has now been restored.”
Fortunately, Jim won an appeal which saw his conviction quashed.
However, many miners did not get that opportunity and lost jobs because of their criminal record.
Now those men are due to be pardoned by the Scottish Government after a review into policing during the strikes by John Scott QC.
Jim submitted evidence to the inquiry – but believes it should have also included the judiciary.
He said that he “experienced first hand that police would lie in court” and “an already biased sheriff” would “find me guilty of the offence manufactured by the police.”
He added: “These guys were not criminals. Not every miner was an angel but neither were the police.“
Describing why men went without a pay packet for a full year, he reflected: “The fight was not about money or wages – it was about saving communities.
“There were thriving communities, you could go to a dance every night. The pubs and shops were bustling. The foundations are beneath our feet. If you take the foundations away everything will crumble.”
The mining towns and villages were booming then. Back in the 1980s, Jim reckons New Cumnock had a population of 9,000. Now it is only 2,500.
The Cumnock and New Cumnock SNP politician remembers the day in March 1985 when he returned to work at the National Coal Board pit after exactly a year with a “tear in his eye.”
He says: “We lost the fight. We knew that was the end.
“There was no help. They closed the pits and they left us as an industrial graveyard. The memories are vivid. We are left with monuments. That is what hurts so much. They just walked away after the strike and left us.”
But the experience of camaraderie and close bonds in the pits has remained with him over the years.
He added: “In the deep mines you had to watch each other’s back.”
The dangerous job saw him “smash his back” after being hit with a hydraulic prop – which shunted him on to a moving belt at the last working deep mine Craigman.
He was off work injured for 14 weeks.
Back where his mining career began at the Barony, Auchinleck, he looks at his old helmet engrained with coal dust and clutches a lantern reminiscent of times gone by.
Jim, of Sorn, says: “This is where I did my training. I would be dropped down into the ground. I started when I was 18 years old. Mining was in my blood.
“Once you are a miner, you are always a miner. I can still smell the stale air.”
Ballochmyle SNP councillor Jim Roberts was also a miner at Killoch but had left before the major strike.
He commented: “Some of the sentences dished out by the judiciary bore no resemblance to what took place. They were excessively severe.
“There is no doubt the system was against the miners.”
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