Durham Miners' Gala RIP brother miners, brother bandsmen and men of Easington
Touching words below from JPW Mallalieu who witnessed the band playing Gresford at the Gala just weeks after the disaster of 1951
“Suddenly there was silence. The colours danced, but everything else was still. For the banner we now saw was draped in black…”
Easington Lodge at the Durham Miners' Gala, just weeks after the Easington Colliery Disaster. An explosion at the pit claimed the lives of 83 men on this day in 1951.
The Labour MP JPW Mallalieu wrote a moving account of what he saw at that year’s Gala.
“Through the silence the Easington Band began to play Gresford, the tune which a miner himself had written in sorrow for the great Gresford disaster. When the tune came to an end there was again stillness and silence until Old Elvet gently relaxed his hold and there was space to move. With the first movement the great crowd set up a storm of cheering that could be heard in Paradise, dancers cavorted again and the sunshine wiped away all thought of tears. Miners rub shoulders with death. They know how to face death. Last Saturday I saw, too, that they will not let death spoil life." ... See more