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Durham miners’ gala: radical banners – including animals

2024 October 4

Even in the rain in July 2024 the Durham miners’ gala was not just remembering the miners’ strike of 40 years in 1984-5 but, presenting a militant trade union platform and  showing very many banners. This was the 138th Durham miners’ gala. The County Hotel balcony at which former important labour members had been seated, watching the banners go by, had included Nye Bevan, Michael Foot,Tony Benn, Denis Skinner, Harold Wilson (!) and many others as the programme noted. Unsurprisingly Keir Starmer was not present here, but sitting on the platform and being welcomed by the wet banner holders was – Jeremy Corbyn.

County Hotel balcony with Jeremy Corbyn 2024

Held here, but very wet indeed , was the Follonsby banner (hence a clear image from a book) made for The Follonsby Lodge of the Durham Miners Association in Wardley, Gateshead. The banner was one of just three in the entire British coalfield to feature communist leader Lenin and the only one to also include the Irish revolutionary James Connolly, executed after the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916. The other figures that featured on the banner were Keir Hardie, former Scottish miner and founder member of the Independent Labour Party in 1923, AJ Cook miners’ leader in the 1920s, and Follonsby Lodge Secretary George Harvey, a Ruskin student 1907-8. It was reproduced by Lewis Mates, Davie Hopper,David Douglass, and others. David was a third generation Follonsby miner, then active in Hatfield in Yorkshire during the 84-5 strike and also a former student at Ruskin College, under Raphael Samuel, and a subsequent historian and writer.

Still present Follonsby banner

Decades ago John Gorman wrote the excellent book Banner Bright discussing many important trade union banners, but many had disappeared even years before. He explained that in 1935 the  NUM Chopwell lodge banner was painted again with Marx, Lenin and Keir Hardie replacing a badly torn one, with Walt Whitman’s clear phrase. ” We take up the task eternal, The burden and lesson, Pioneers! Oh! Pioneers” In the recent 2024 Durham miner’s gala it was still there, albeit covered to prevent the bad rain, (hence an earlier photo).

Chopwell banner – still there but at an earlier gala

 This year covered to keep dry was the East Hetton Lodge showing a grave commemorating “all the miners killed and injured “ with the dates seemingly now reworded 1839 -1983 with a grieving dog nearby.This image was not unique to the NUM but others unions such as the TGWU displayed graves with dogs on what John Gorman explained as “coffin clubs”. Here a dog sees the grave where miners have been remembered.

Also present, protected behind a fence, was the Morrison Lodges banner commissioned in 2018 to commemorate the Morrison (and Morrison Busty) pits both closed in 1964 and 1972. Apparently the image of a lion, lamb and child is based on a biblical scene though seemingly different to many Renaissance images presenting religious scenes with animals.The message Reign of Peace, quotes the bible for the millennial period where apparently animals would exist alongside humans but the individual lion seems more important on the banner!

Morrison banner with a focus on a lion

Not on an extant banner but still portrayed on a poster, often for purchase at the gala, was Flack , the last pit pony to work in a British coal mine, brought to the surface for the last time in 1994. Alongside other ponies from Ellington Colliery in Northumberland, he too retired.

One of the many ponies remembered by the miners

Despite the heavy rain- and the dubious political scenario arising from July 4th- here it was positive to certainly remember earlier times in many important ways. Think now about going next year!

 

 

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