Cambridge Heritage Research Seminar
The Durham Miners Gala: Incongruous Heritage on Parade
Dr Helaine Silverman
Seminar Room, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Downing Street, Cambridge
Coal mining was a horrific occupation, rife with physical danger, occupational disease and heartless labour exploitation by mine owners. Mining communities were commonly stigmatized and, most notoriously in the year of the Great Strike, vilified and brutalized. Yet for the miners this was a profession that generated tremendous male comraderie and pride in work, close-knit communities, strong families, deep faith, perseverance, and political action in the face of harsh conditions. The most public expression of the miners' spirit of resistance and action was and still is the Durham Miners Gala, which just celebrated its 135th year. Animated by the glorious banners that traditionally represent the pit village, the "Big Meeting" continues in the absence of the industry that generated it and in the absence of the physical landscape that supported it. This talk introduces the concept of incongruous heritage to understand the seemingly contradictory processes and discourses implicated in the Gala and its survival for more than a century.
