Jeremy’s got a lot to answer for..! It’s going to be huge... not bad for a group whose last pit was closed in 1993

Reporter ONCE, when coal was king, they turned out in huge numbers in a show of solidarity...

But in recent years, the Durham Miners Gala, known as the Big Meeting, has been in what many feared was terminal decline.

And when, as a local MP and Labour Party leader, Tony Blair failed to show, it looked as though the death knell was sounded for what had been one of the movement’s set-to pieces of political propaganda.

Until now - for a crowd in excess of 200,000 is expected at next month’s Gala where Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will be speaking.

Last year around 150,000 turned up for the historic event, the biggest attendance in 60 years, when he was also the star attraction.

And after the general election result which saw Mr Corbyn’s Labour overcome the odds to force a hung parliament, a hero’s welcome awaits him on July 8.

Alan Cummings, secretary of the Durham Miners Association which organises the event, joked: “Jeremy’s got a lot to answer for after these last few days - he could put on an extra 50,000. “It’s going to be unbelievable. “Last year I’ve never seen so many people on that field for a long, long time. “It was like the 1950s again when we used to have two platforms for the speakers. Alan Cummings

“This year the crowds will be bigger.

“It’s not bad for an association whose last pit closed in 1993.”

The Gala has been running since 1871 and has long been a huge event in the region’s calendar.

At its height the Durham coalfield employed 200,000 men and boys in 200 mines and huge crowds of at least 300,000 attended the event - affectonately known in local parlance as ‘the Big Meeting.’

In the 1990s, after the last coal mines were closed, there was serious talk of the event ending and it was repeatedly snubbed by Labour leaders - infamously wiht Mr Blair never turning up to it as the party