A QUARTER of a century after the end of the miners’ strike, those dark days and the feeling of brotherhood they engendered were remembered at the 125th Durham Miners’ Gala.

Tens of thousands of people basked in glorious sunshine as brass band music filled the air on Saturday.

Visitors travelled from all over the country to attend the annual event in which former mining communities celebrate their heritage.

Villagers from the Durham area, and further afield, joined fellow trade unionists in a show of solidarity.

Colliery banners were carried from the Market Place, pausing outside the County Hotel for bands to perform for local dignitaries, before heading to Durham Racecourse for the speeches.

Socialist stalwart Dennis Skinner, the Derbyshire MP dubbed the “Beast of Bolsover”

for his clashes with the Tory front bench during the miners’ strike of 1984, used his speech to hark back to the industrial action 25 years ago.

“I am proud to come here to the Durham Miners’ rally,” Mr Skinner said. “There was a lot of agony and ecstasy in that miners’ strike.

“It wasn’t a romantic interlude in our lives. It was a raw battle in which we had, not only the elected Government against us, we had the police organised as a national police force in order to attack the miners, and on and on it went.”

Mr Skinner recalled that Margaret Thatcher considered sending in the Army to defeat working men on the picket lines of County Durham, Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, as part of the strong-arm tactics.

Alluding to the investigations launched after the end of the G20 protests in London, he added: “Wasn’t it a pity that we didn’t have those mobile cameras? We would have won with mobile cameras.

“Notwithstanding that, it was a glorious year and let nobody in the audience believe that there wasn’t a possibility of winning.”

At 3pm, Durham Cathedral held its 100th miners’ festival service with six banners, including those from West Stanley and Easington communities, which suffered major pit disasters.

As people entered the cathedral, the bands played various hymns, including Gresford, which commemorates the Welsh disaster in 1934, in which 299 pitmen perished.

The first hymn was the one that started the first-ever gala service, All People That On Earth Do Dwell.

During the service, there was a time for remembrance for the people who had lost their lives in the mining industry, notably during the West Stanley Colliery disaster of February 16, 1909, in which 168 men and boys died and which was commemorated with a number of events earlier this year.

Chapter Steward Anne Heywood said about 2,700 people attended the service where new banners from Westoe, Boldon and South Hetton were blessed by the Bishop of Durham, the Right Reverend Tom Wright.

She said: “It was a wonderful service, people of all ages came. It was the fullest we have seen the cathedral for a long time.

“Some people want to come and remember, while others wanted to give thanks.”

Police estimate that more than 100,000 people were in the city during Saturday’s gala and said it passed off peacefully, despite 13 arrests for public order offences, which took place largely on the show field.