Durham Miners' Gala

The Durham Miners' Gala — known locally as "the Big Meeting" — is held on the second Saturday of July and is the largest trade union event in the world. Colliery brass bands from across the North East march through the city streets each carrying their pit's silk banner, converging on the racecourse for speeches and entertainment. Even if you have no particular interest in labour history, it is a remarkable spectacle: the sound of twenty brass bands playing simultaneously in a narrow city-centre street has to be heard to be believed.

The Gala is free to attend and entirely community-organised. The streets fill from around 9am as the processions begin; the speeches on the racecourse run from late morning. The pubs open early and stay packed all day. If you're visiting Durham in July and the dates align, don't miss it.

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A story
The Gala began in 1871, when the Durham coalfield was at the height of its power and employed hundreds of thousands of men. At its peak before World War II, up to 300,000 people attended. The colliery bands — each with its own hand-painted silk banner bearing the name and symbols of the pit — march through the city and past the balcony of the County Hotel, where union leaders and invited guests (over the years including Clement Attlee, Aneurin Bevan, and Jeremy Corbyn) address the crowd. After the last pit closed in the 1990s, many expected the Gala to fade; instead it has grown again as a celebration of working-class culture and labour history.