A NEW banner to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the miners' strike will also be a potent symbol of the struggles facing today's workers and those seeking employment, according to union officials.

The Durham Miners' Association (DMA), the union Unite, the Durham Unite community support centre and Durham Bannermakers have joined forces to create the new banner.

Joe Rollin, Unite community co-ordinator for the North-East, Yorkshire and Humberside, said: “We want to remember the struggles of the past but we also want the banner to be a symbol that our spirit is unbroken and that it represents the struggles we are facing now.”

Mr Rollin was one of a number of speakers at a special event in West Cornforth, County Durham, to discuss what the banner should represent and come up with ideas for its design.

Others included Davy Hopper, general secretary of the DMA, along with Florence Anderson and Heather Wood, key figures during the strike.

Emma Shankland, of Durham Bannermakers, said there was much more to the project than simply commemorating the miners' strike.

“We want to make a banner that is celebrating the past and looking towards the future,” she said.

“We are looking at how collectively communities can work together, support each other and help each other.

“A banner is symbol lots of people identify with. We have 50,000 people at the Durham miners' gala who identify with the banner each year.”

Mrs Shankland added: “When you think of banners, you think they are something that belong to the past.

“I think it is very important we design something that unites the past and the future.”

She said a good cross section of people aged from their 20s to their 70s attended the design session and she was looking forward to taking their ideas and making them into a workable design.

“We should get a good representation of what people believe community spirit stands for.”

Mrs Shankland will complete the banner in time for this year's miners' gala on Saturday, July 12.

The banner is costing £2,000 to make, which is being raised by donations from the 410 industrial branches of Unite across the region, with Mrs Shankland donating her time to the project free of charge.