A Durham Miners Gala talk will explore how the Durham Miners Association played a vital role in British politics.
The talk, which takes place in Redhills, the Pitmen's Parliament, will focus on the stories of the Durham Miners Association leaders Sam Watson, Alfred Hesler, Charlie Pick and Kit Robinson, and the role they played in the politics of the coal industry and the Labour Party after the Second World War.
Called 'The Little Dictator and the Three Musketeers: The NUM Durham Area at a time of Nationalisation and the Cold War', the Durham Miners Gala talk takes place in the week before the Big Meeting, on Tuesday July 9. The Durham Miners Gala date is Saturday July 13 2019. Jeremy Corbyn is attending the Big Meeting along with a host of other Durham Miners Gala speakers.
The Durham Miners Gala talk is free to attend and no registration is needed. There will be refreshments served beforehand at 6pm, with the talk itself starting at 7pm. There is also another talk the day before the Big Meeting, when Shami Chakrabarti gives the Durham Miners Gala Dave Hopper Memorial Lecture.
The Durham Miners Gala talk will be given by Huw Beynon, Emeritus Professor of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, who is the author of 'Masters and Servants: Class and Patronage in the Making of a Labour Organisation: The Durham Miners and the English Political Tradition' (with Terry Austin), and editor of 'Digging Deeper: Issues in the Miners Strike'.
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His new book (with Ray Hudson) 'The Shadow of the Mine: Coal and the end of industrial Britain' will be published by Verso next year.
The Durham Miners Association is the organisation behind the Big Meeting and also provides services for ex miners. It is celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2019, and to mark the occasion the DMA is producing a new banner which will be blessed in the Durham Cathedral Miners Gala service.
The talk is presented by the North East Labour History Society as part of Education 4 Action's Durham Miners Gala fringe programme.
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