James Stephenson

Society

Ours is a laager

• 24 July 2008
• 1 comment

For more than a hundred years, the Durham Miners' Gala was a firm fixture in the calendar of the British Labour movement. But in July 1988 the miners gathered together at their annual festival for the last time. In future the gala was to be organised for all the manual working class of north-east England. James Stephenson describes that historic event in the City of Durham as a ceremony of remembrance, a requiem for a lost world before the new Labour project's arrival.