Victims remembered (From The Northern Echo)

Victims remembered

8:09am Monday 16th February 2009 in Stanley Pit Disaster

THE Northern Echo launched a four-year campaign to win recognition for the 118 victims of the Stanley pit disaster who lay buried in unmarked graves.

The Stanley Burns Pit Disaster Memorial Committee was formed and received the backing of the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

As part of the campaign to raise almost £6,000, reporter Chris Webber completed a 450-mile sponsored walk from Britain’s oldest mine – a Neolithic flint site at Cissbury Ring, near Brighton – finishing in Durham City on the 120th Miners’ Gala Day in 2004.

The South African granite monument, which is 9ft 6in long and 3ft high, was unveiled on March 5, 2005, behind St Andrew’s Church, in Stanley.

It provides a lasting memorial to one of the worst mining disasters in the region’s history.