Big Meeting’s glory days caught on film
THE Durham Miners’ Gala returned last weekend for the first time since 2019. It was the 136th ‘Big Meeting’. Across the years, the annual celebration of working-class culture and community has attracted crowds of 200,000 who enjoy the day’s sights, sounds, and carnival atmosphere.
Our website, www.chroniclelive.co.uk, has a film clip, ‘Durham Miners’ Gala 1951-1955’ – once again courtesy of the North East Film Archive – that take us back to a time when coal was king and the yearly gala was a celebration of the strength and solidarity of the mining industry and its close-knit communities where, for generations, life had centred on the local pit.
In the remarkable footage, we see Durham’s streets thronged with thousands of people, banners aflutter, famous political figures, and brass bands in all their pomp. Back in the early 1950s, as folk from the county’s mining towns and villages flocked every summer to picturesque Durham City with their pit banners, they would not have known that six or seven decades later the coal industry would be little more than a museum piece.
The gala developed out of the first miners’ union being established in 1869.
The Durham Miners’ Association organised the inaugural event, which was held in 1871 in Wharton Park, Durham.
The gala switched to the racecourse site, which has remained its home ever since, the following year. The very first meeting was called to celebrate the fact that united action by the miners had broken the grip of unscrupulous coal owners, marking the end of bonded labour.
At its height, crowds of around 500,000 would gather for the annual celebration. The gala has traditionally begun in Durham city centre with a parade of colliery banners and brass bands marching across Elvet Bridge.
If you would like to watch more archive footage like this, but in DVD form, Newcastle On Film has been specially produced by NEFA. Presented and narrated by Pam Royle – latterly of ITV Tyne Tees News fame – it pays homage to life on Tyneside and features lots of wonderful archive film footage.
The DVD ‘Newcastle On Film’ is priced at £12 (including postage and packing), and all profits from the sale go back into the valuable work of the North East Film Archive. See more from the North East Film Archive at www.yfanefa.com