Another Big Meeting
Jul. 13th, 2023 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustSaturday was the Big Meeting, the annual Gala of the Durham Miners' - the 137th annual Gala, in fact. We first attended, unintentionally, in 1972, and not only have we attended many times since, I have written about it many times. Sometimes there is blazing sunshine, sometimes there is torrential rain: this year there were both. There are banners old and new:
This is the National Education Union: I love the colour scheme, the blue blobs of their logo, the pink presumably chosen to harmonise with the radiant dawn of the central image, but also echoing the buildings of Old Elvet. But the education union I was looking for was the NASUWT, for two reasons: because they have a truly excellent band, and because that's where I'd expect to find C. And eventually we did find them, and her, on the Racecourse: they had been among the first in the procession.
They weren't the only people we spoke to who had found themselves earlier in the order of things than they had expected. On reflection, I wonder whether the entire procession got through earlier than usual: I don't think that we were out later than usual, but I did feel we'd seen less. Perhaps the closure of the North Road had something to do with it; the new bus station should have been open by now, and everything back to normal, but we are still waiting...
We found - and attached ourselves to -durham_rambler's union (Prospect), and followed them through the crush outside the Royal County Hotel, which was less dense than usual (and durham_rambler managed to spot Jeremy Corbyn among the platform party on the balcony). Then down onto the Racecourse, when the forecast rain came bucketting down, and I was more than ready to sit down, and luckily Prospect had a gazebo (apparently that's what it's called) and a spare seat. So we didn't hear the speeches; we didn't even linger to watch as Ken Loach introduced the trailer for his new film.
If we could have found somewhere to sit and eat lunch without abandoning the party, we might have done so: but it didn't happen, and we ended up at Patisserie Valerie in the Prince Bishops shopping centre (never done that before!). I was impressed that I had managed to walk down to the Racecourse and back, but I was pretty exhausted by now. Just a little further: I ducked into the remainder bookshop, and snagged a copy of the third Richard Osman mystery, anddurham_rambler came home to collect the car, and picked me up at the foot of Crossgate.
This is the National Education Union: I love the colour scheme, the blue blobs of their logo, the pink presumably chosen to harmonise with the radiant dawn of the central image, but also echoing the buildings of Old Elvet. But the education union I was looking for was the NASUWT, for two reasons: because they have a truly excellent band, and because that's where I'd expect to find C. And eventually we did find them, and her, on the Racecourse: they had been among the first in the procession.
They weren't the only people we spoke to who had found themselves earlier in the order of things than they had expected. On reflection, I wonder whether the entire procession got through earlier than usual: I don't think that we were out later than usual, but I did feel we'd seen less. Perhaps the closure of the North Road had something to do with it; the new bus station should have been open by now, and everything back to normal, but we are still waiting...
We found - and attached ourselves to -
durham_rambler's union (Prospect), and followed them through the crush outside the Royal County Hotel, which was less dense than usual (and durham_rambler managed to spot Jeremy Corbyn among the platform party on the balcony). Then down onto the Racecourse, when the forecast rain came bucketting down, and I was more than ready to sit down, and luckily Prospect had a gazebo (apparently that's what it's called) and a spare seat. So we didn't hear the speeches; we didn't even linger to watch as Ken Loach introduced the trailer for his new film.If we could have found somewhere to sit and eat lunch without abandoning the party, we might have done so: but it didn't happen, and we ended up at Patisserie Valerie in the Prince Bishops shopping centre (never done that before!). I was impressed that I had managed to walk down to the Racecourse and back, but I was pretty exhausted by now. Just a little further: I ducked into the remainder bookshop, and snagged a copy of the third Richard Osman mystery, and
durham_rambler came home to collect the car, and picked me up at the foot of Crossgate.
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Date: 2023-07-14 08:58 am (UTC)Corbyn is a local boy here of course.
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Date: 2023-07-14 10:32 am (UTC)No 'of course' about it: I didn't know that. I associate him with Islington, where he was my mother's / is my brother's M.P.
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Date: 2023-07-14 02:09 pm (UTC)Happy about it or not, he's a Shropshire lad.