THE unveiling of a mining memorial has been brought forward.

A ceremony to mark the erection of a specially-commissioned statue will now take place in Esh Winning on Saturday (October 17), at 11am.

The event, a celebration of the completion of a £65,000 fund raising drive, was to have taken place on Saturday, October 31.

But the Esh Winning Miners' Memorial Group re-arranged the event to take place this weekend, thereby also avoiding the celebration of the centenary of the Redhills miners' hall, in Durham, on the intervening Saturday (October 24).

The memorial, featuring a miner and his young family, was designed by local resident Norman Emery, Durham Cathedral's archaeologist in residence, and commissioned through Humberside specialist monument maker Odlings.

As it was to be made from black granite Odlings out-sourced to specialists in China, and the completed life-size statue was only recently lowered into place, on a specially-erected sansdtone plinth outside Woodland Road Communal Hall, in Esh Winning, following a 9,000 mile journey by ship, via the Humber, to the Deerness Valley.

Since then the finishing touches have been added, in the form of a decorative railing surround, complete with symbolic miners' lamps on each corner.

Members of the local former colliery brass band will perform at Saturday's unveiling ceremony, to be attended by guests including Durham Miners' Association general secretary Dave Hopper, Durham's Deputy Mayor, Councillor Bill Moir, and representatives from other bodies which helped to back the six-year fund raising drive.

The memorial commemorates not only those men and boys who lost their lives during the 102-year lifespan of Esh Winning Colliery, but also those who perished in accidents in neighbouring collieries in the Deerness Valley, at Waterhouses, Hedley Hill and East Hedleyhope.