Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 22251 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| DURHAM MINERS' GALA | 1953 | 1953-01-01 |
|
Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Black & White Sound: Silent Duration: 2 mins 13 secs Genre: Amateur Subject: Coal |
| Summary Amateur footage of the Durham Miners Gala in 1953 including the crowds at the Old Racecourse, gathering at the Cathedral for the special service and general views shot from Durham Cathedral tower. |
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Description
Amateur footage of the Durham Miners Gala in 1953 including the crowds at the Old Racecourse, gathering at the Cathedral for the special service and general views shot from Durham Cathedral tower.
The film begins with general views of crowds gathered on Silver Street, some carrying banners, for the march to the racecourse.
Portrait shots of a family enjoying ice cream wafers at the racecourse, joking and sharing licks of the ice creams with each other. The family picnic on the racecourse,...
Amateur footage of the Durham Miners Gala in 1953 including the crowds at the Old Racecourse, gathering at the Cathedral for the special service and general views shot from Durham Cathedral tower.
The film begins with general views of crowds gathered on Silver Street, some carrying banners, for the march to the racecourse.
Portrait shots of a family enjoying ice cream wafers at the racecourse, joking and sharing licks of the ice creams with each other. The family picnic on the racecourse, some of the girls wearing frilly bonnets which were a popular buy at the event in the 50s. General view from the back of the crowd listening to the speeches at the racecourse, a politician glimpsed on the distant stage, which could be Clement Attlee. Group shot of the family walking towards camera together in a line, some of the women and girls wearing the filly bonnets.
People mill around the Horden Lodge banner depicting A J Cook, Peter Lee, and Robert Smilie. Portrait shot of a woman posing beside the banner.
The crowds are picnicking at the racecourse, the banners lined up at the edge of the field. [This sequence contains speeded up film.]
Back around the Cathedral, police are patrolling on horses. Some of the crowds, brass bands and banners are assembling in Palace Green. A priest leads a group with the Langley Park Lodge banner, a brass band following on behind.
Views follow from Durham Cathedral tower of the racecourse, the assembly in Palace Green, areas of Durham City, crowds crossing Old Elvet Bridge.
Then we're back on the packed streets, a clock showing the time as 4:50pm. Banners slowly make their way through the streets along with the crowds.
Context
Every second Saturday in July one of the great traditions of the North East takes place. A proud parade of brass bands and banners, “as big and ornate as stained-glass windows”, wends its way through the streets of Durham City to the Old Racecourse as part of a special celebration and spectacle that grew out of the trade unionism of miners in the region, the first Union established in 1869.
The first Gala was held on 12 August, 1871, in Wharton Park, Durham, above the railway station. The...
Every second Saturday in July one of the great traditions of the North East takes place. A proud parade of brass bands and banners, “as big and ornate as stained-glass windows”, wends its way through the streets of Durham City to the Old Racecourse as part of a special celebration and spectacle that grew out of the trade unionism of miners in the region, the first Union established in 1869.
The first Gala was held on 12 August, 1871, in Wharton Park, Durham, above the railway station. The Durham Miners' Association hired 40 police to encourage shop-keepers in the town centre to stay open. The event began as a campaign by Northern mine workers to lobby pit bosses, who met regularly at the Royal County Hotel to set mining wages. In 1872, 40,000 people attended the Gala at Durham racecourse. The Gala was always a political rally as well as a celebration for the families of men who dug up the coal, deep underground, which created the nation’s wealth. Left-wing politicians and trades union leaders customarily cheer on the parade from the balcony of the County Hotel and deliver speeches at the racecourse picnic where the mass of banners still create a ‘colourful tapestry of working class history”. The miners' banners at the Gala consist of imaginative painted and embroidered designs, many containing socialist iconography, political slogans and the folklore of individual collieries and pit communities. As a decorative and performative symbol of the identity and aspirations of organisations who had a tradition of marching, it’s contradictory that the origin of nineteenth and twentieth century banners can be traced back to a time when membership of trade societies was illegal and meetings highly secretive. |
