The tens of thousands who poured through the narrow cobbled streets of the
ancient City of Durham on Saturday created a great atmosphere for the
121st Durham Miners’ Gala.
Miners’ Banners from across Northumberland and Durham were proudly held
aloft alongside dozen’s of others from the Trade Union and Labour Movement
from across Britain and in one or two cases from abroad.
Music from brass bands, many of them packed with young talented musicians,
helped the baking hot to march past the dignitaries perched precariously
on the balcony at the County Hall down to the Riverside to listen to
speeches, buy ice-creams and cold drinks, look round the stalls and decide
whether to go on the shows.
The Durham ‘Big Meeting’ as it is more popularly known proved, once
again,
that it could bring together people of all ages in a carnival of working
class solidarity and community spirit. Those who took part, and especially
those who organised it should be proud of themselves.
Dave Douglass, one time native of the area, and a National Union of
Mineworkers member for 40 years said he was here “to celebrate the
heritage of the miner’s and the miner’s union” and described
the day as
“excellent.” He bemoaned the fact that for the first time in the
history
of the gala the region has no working pit.
Fiona Evans who has just written a play called ‘we love you arthur’
[scargill], which starts out in the assembly rooms at Edinburgh Festival
in a few weeks before showing across the north-east, said that the music
was “brilliant.”
Sheila Seacroft, a resident of Durham said she came every year because
“this is a people’s festival which is for everybody, there are whole
families here, there’s a kiddie in front of me who is about one and a
half
and there are grannies who are possibly eighty, and it is just a wonderful
event.”
Ex-Wapping striker John Lang, on his first visit to the Gala, said it “was
good to see lots of the old union banners and that lots of people are
still active. It’s great.”
Madonna Lang, sweltering under the sun, was pleased to see the large
numbers that had turned up and “that so many of them are young people.”
Ray Jones of AMICUS said he was “here for a great day out in the defence
of trade unions” which he would recommend for anybody.
The platform was packed with MPs, local councillors and trade union
officials including three general secretaries in Bob Crow [RMT], Matt
Wrack [FBU] and Steve Kemp [NUM] Amongst the invited guests was ex-Labour
MP Tony Benn who received rapturous applause when he was introduced to the
crowd by Dave Guy, President of the Gala.
Guy said that whilst he was pleased to see the Labour Party re-elected for
a historic third term that those in it should be aware “that they won’t
be
remembered for the number of times they’ve been elected but for what
you’ve done” and called for a return to “radical policies
based on a
socialist agenda.”
Billy Hayes, CWU General Secretary, began by recalling the 1972, 1974 and
1984-85 strikes by Miners saying “all that was best lined up behind the
miners at the time.”
He poured scorn on Margaret Thatcher’s claim that there was no such thing
as society saying “we can see society here today in the values of
community, collectivisation and solidarity.”
CWU members “serve every single household in the UK” he said before
attacking Government plans to try and privatise the Royal Mail. “The best
future for Royal Mail is in the public sector” he said “and that’s
what
the British public wants.”
“Profits must be ploughed back into the industry,” he said to good
applause from the watching thousands.
Debbie Coulter, GMB Deputy General Secretary, who was active in Women
Against Pit Closures in 1984-85, said that “it was vital” to “increase
trade union membership” and the challenge today for the trade union
movement is “to organise workers in the non-traditional industries.”
“The challenge is enormous as many of these workers associate trade union
membership with the coal mine, the clothing factory or the shipyard, but
not with the distribution centre, the call centre or the leisure centre.”
Ian Lavery, President of the NUM, brought “fraternal greetings”
but
bemoaned that this was the first gala to take place “without a pit in
the
great northern coalfield” after Ellington Pit was “murdered by
privatisation” and forced to close in January this year.
“The colliery was closed without any consultation with the workforce”
and
it “will very shortly be raised to the ground,” he bemoaned.
He attacked the Blair Government’s energy policy arguing “funding
is the
issue, where will the money come from people ask?” [to start mining again]
But “that wasn’t the question when we asked where they got the money
from
for the war in Iraq, where they have killed and maimed thousands for
energy” he said to loud applause.
“It is much better to use the money which was used for that illegal
invasion, that is used to keep the troops in Iraq to build a new programme
of clean coal technology, power stations and collieries up and down the
country.”
Rodney Bickerstaffe, President of ‘War on Want’ expressed his condolences
to all those who lost friends and relatives in Thursday’s bombings in
London but said that “the Government should not use these bombings as
a
pretext to take away more of our civil liberties” and he praised public
servants who had done “a magnificent job for all of us” on Thursday
and he
said it “was a pity” that “more praise and pay” wasn’t
given to them at
other times during their years “of sustained public service.”
Noting, “our country is one of mongrels” enriched by generations
of
immigrants he said, “we all have to live peacefully” and obtained
sustained applause.
He described it as “an absolute bloody scandal” that over 20,000
older
people continue to die for “cold related diseases” each winter.
He urged
MPs to support “a decent state pension for everyone over retirement age.”
Denouncing means testing “which should have gone out a hundred years ago”
he declared himself behind the fight to “restore the link between pensions
and average earnings.”
The last speaker, Dennis Skinner, MP for Bolsover said, “the Durham Gala
will still be here when new Labour has gone.”
“The Gala has survived because of that wonderful solidarity and community
spirit” which pervades the whole of Durham and “we are still here
because
of wonderful dreams of a socialist future, that’s why we are still here.”
He recalled that throughout the 1984-85 strike that there was hardship but
there were also “many happy memories” and the crowd laughed along
as he
told them of some of his own including a classic when miners asked if he
wanted a lift in London four weeks after the strike ended. “What are you
doing down here?” he asked before being told that a film producer had
lent
them a house and a car a number of months ago before going abroad. The
lads had ‘forgotten’ to tell him the strike was now over.
He noted that parties of the far right and the Liberals were trying to
fill the political vacuum. On the Liberals he pointed out that they
opposed the 84-85 strike and they supported privatisation.
Outlining some of his own views for the future Skinner said that “rail
should be brought back into public ownership” and there should be no
privatisation of the Royal Mail.
“We want guarantees [of rights] across the board for every single worker”
described earlier by Debbie Coulter. At the end he received the loudest
and most sustained applause of any speaker.
Summing up at the end Dave Hopper, the Gala General Secretary said “we
have seen probably the biggest attendance for 40 years” and “next
year we
already have six new banners being made” and more people expected. Don’t
miss it; it takes place on Saturday July 8th 2006.
Mark Metcalf