A COMMUNITY turned out in strength this morning to pay its last respects to former Easington MP John Cummings – remembering him as a man who served it distinction and who always had the common touch.

Senior politicians and union leaders joined family and friends for a Requiem Mass conducted by Father Frank Mcullough, before Mr Cummings' burial at St Joseph’s RC Church in Murton, east Durham.

Among those attending were Sedgefield MP Phil Wilson, North Durham MP Kevan Jones, former Bishop MP Lord Derek Foster, Gateshead MP Dave Anderson and Durham County Councillor leader Simon Henig.

Condolences came from a former Chinese ambassador, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who recalled Mr Cummings as a “strong fighter for his beliefs, with working-class instincts”.

A fifth generation miner, Mr Cummings, 73, died on Tuesday, January 4, at St Margaret’s care home in Durham, where he had been cared for since being diagnosed with lung cancer.

He worked as an electrician at Murton Colliery, before going on to become one of the youngest councillors to be elected to District of Easington Council in 1970 - rising to council chairman in 1974 and leader in 1979.

He first entered the Commons as Labour MP for Easington in 1987 and was a staunch defender of miners’ rights, fighting for those left in ill health.

Mr Cummings served with “great distinction for 23 years”, before stepping down in 2010, when his agent Grahame Morris was elected in his place.

Giving the eulogy, Mr Morris said: “John Cummings was one of an increasingly rare breed of Labour MPs, schooled in the trade union movement in the industry in which he worked.

“He was real Labour. He had no is all graces or sense of false pride. John was as comfortable with senior politicians, prime ministers and statesman, but was never more at home than with ordinary people - he had the common touch.

“John was a popular and distinguished trade union leader, a great Labour spokesman, a great socialist and more than that he was a wonderful colleague a friend.”

Mr Morris recalled how Mr Cummings served as one of the leading lights in the campaign to save the coal mines and was a regular sight on the picket line during the 1984/85 Miners’ Strike with his dog named Grit – a dog he had taught to growl whenever Margaret Thatcher came on television.

Among other achievements were persuading the then deputy Prime Minister John Prescott to set up the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, providing much-needed support funding for the area and for the development of Dalton Park, which generated many jobs for the area.

In a note of tribute, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: “John Cummings was one of those MPs who never ceased to remind us of our responsibilities to the people we represent. During all his years in Parliament he never ceased to speak from the heart.”

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who sent his apologies for not attending, added: “John was a strong fighter for his beliefs, with working-class instincts.

“Like so many of his generation his political interests were formed in his trade union, in his case the National union of Mineworkers.

“The harsh conditions that mineworkers such as John had to endure gave him a strongly held beliefs about social justice, equality and rights for all. These have always been central tenets of our Labour movement.”

He added: “The passing of John is not only the loss of personal loss of a dear friend and colleague it is a loss to the Labour Party and to the Labour movement as a whole."