Donna Franceschild's recent drama, The Key, shown over the last three weeks on BBC2 provided viewers with a rare opportunity to watch a programme reflecting the realities of working class life and our history, not to mention a welcome break from the so-called reality TV shows like Fame Academy and Pop Idol.

The drama chronicles some of the key political movements and events for the Scottish and British working class of the twentieth century and its effects on the lives of three generations of Glaswegian women in the one family.

It begins in 1915, where the main character, Mary Corrigan (Dawn Steele/June Watson), becomes involved in the union's fight for better pay and conditions in the textile factory where she works. It then moves to 1997, just before the general election, and shows Mary, about to turn 99 years of age, who now lives in a badly funded and understaffed nursing home which is about to be turned over to a PFI by the Labour led council.

The story is narrated by Mary's granddaughter Jessie (Frances Grey), she describes how the different generations of women in her family coped with the depression, domestic violence, poverty, raising a family, it's involvement within the labour and trade union movement and the betrayals carried out by New Labour and their cronies in the union leadership.

It moves quite quickly at times between the decades, but in doing so it show's that while some things have changed a lot, there's lots that's exactly the same, mainly how capitalism still exploits worker's in the same way.

They still use the divide and rule tactic to set workers against workers shown when Mary was sacked after a worker was "encouraged" to expose Mary as a thief for stealing a scrap of cloth. Seventy years later three women in a desperate bid to get a better paying job in head office were forced to spill the beans on each other.

But one of the most striking examples was the scene set in Orgreave during the Miners Strike in 1984. Mary, despite being in her 80's was determined to go to Orgreave to show her solidarity with the miners. It showed the police on horseback attacking the miners and flashed back to Bloody Friday in George Square 1919 where the same methods were used to crush the movement. Franceschild describes why Mary is determined to go, "Mary is very aware that if the miners lost that strike, a lot of what was fought for in terms of building up the trade union movement over that whole time is being lost. So she decides to go to Orgreave to show her support."

Not surprisingly they found it hard to get financing for filming this drama, so when miners from South Yorkshire were approached to help out with the Orgreave scene they were more than happy to help. In fact, they traveled to Scotland at their own expense to be extra's in the scene and ended up teaching the cast some of the songs from their strike.

The story's final episode shows the realities of PFI for working class people. Mary died on her 99th birthday because of staff shortages. She drowned in her bath because she was left alone . This pushes Jessie, who is not a confident woman and unlike her mother and grandmother has never been involved in a union before, to get political and take action on the issue.

This is the main lesson from The Key, as Frances child herself says, "In The Key, I'm trying to show how really important movements in history have been ones that have come up from the grassroots. Historically, when you look at it, that's how it has always happened. I think we're seeing the faintest stirrings of that again."