When the strike broke out, Margaret Handforth was a mother-of-three and housewife whose husband Alf worked at Kellingley colliery in West Yorkshire. She had previously been a secretary, but had no plans to return to work.

Like thousands of other mineworkers' wives, she helped out at her local soup kitchen - in the village of Kellington. She also joined Women Against Pit Closures and found new horizons opening up for her.

Castleford Community Centre has grown far beyond the expectations of the women who set it up.

She travelled round colleges and universities, putting the case for the coalfield communities, and even went on a delegation to Russia.

When the miners finally returned to work, Margaret and her friends were determined not to lose the voice which the strike had helped to give them. She says: "After the strike ended and people were going back to what we term normal lives I think I personally had become very enthused by the will of women who had not had many opportunities in life of broadening their own horizons."

They decided they needed a centre where women from the coalfield communities around Castleford could get practical help and could also improve their education but they had no money to set it up. They began raising funds by selling mining memorabilia on a market stall in Castleford and they also managed to get a small grant towards the cost of setting up premises.

Finally - 18 months after the end of the strike - the Castleford Women's Centre opened its doors for the first time in a run-down house in the town centre with borrowed second-hand furniture.

From its uncertain beginnings, the centre grew far beyond the expectations of the women who first set it up. It became Castleford Community Learning Centre and moved to larger, modern premises.

Thousands of men and women have passed through its doors, studying courses ranging from Spanish to computer studies, from psychology to management. Many of those can now get degrees through a partnership with Leeds Metropolitan University.

Margaret Handforth, who is now the centre's Principal, says: "People at the Community Learning Centre are very unhappy when it comes to half term or the summer. The learning process for them has become a way of life, which is what we are all about."

She says the Centre has opened up opportunities which would never have been thought possible by the women working in the soup kitchens 20 years ago.