to be ridiculously excited about the Durham Miners Gala?

[BrittaPerry]

It is tomorrow and I have been looking forward to it all year :-)

I am in a brass band (although I won't be playing tomorrow as I have the kids) and have been involved or related to brass bands for my entire life, I live literally on top of an old mine (you can see the winding gear from my front door), and I love history as well as being a massive lefty. Plus there are rides! And leaflets! I love a good leaflet.

Might do mine and DHs game of lefty bingo too...

-sign calling for general strike now
-picture of a miner looking grim
-leaflet calling for left unity, slagging off the other factions for not being united enough
-bizarre corporate tie in (law firm giving out free rulers in the unison tent?)
-"Socialist Worker, buy your Socialist Worker!"
-child being lectured by overkeen posh parents
-petition (that you just signed) that starts off sounding reasonable asking for help for pa;estine, but then ends up calling for death for all Jews, or other such thing
-second wave feminist that appears to be knitted entirely out of grey hair and scarves
-rave tricycle
-self published books
-someone who has paid out to print flyers for their website that they haven't even bothered to buy a domain name for
-white person with dreadlocks
-bored police
-Politics student trying to tell a mining union rep about strikes
-terrible folk music
-drunk brass band
-annoyed brass band conductor
-homemade placard for very very niche issue

Any more?

ooh lovely

ok here's mine, add to your list if you like:

Cavatina on programme
Cute toddler conducting with aplomb off to the side of the stage
St J Ambulance cadets willing someone to need assistance, keen as mustard

Sorry are we talking about the same Durham Big Meeting?!

I didn't think anyone went there for anything other than getting totally, unashamedly hammered...??

Can Southerners come? Sounds great. Takes me back to 1980s miners benefits

ooh do you live near me?
(worth a try)

spb, yes I do live near you, and I have met you (namechange ahoy! My real initials are AD...I used to have LG as my MN name, then various things with the initials BP...my DDs are M and E and I live in W...)

Lemarchandsbox, DH doesn't play. I play cornet (although I used to play euph as a child) my sisters play cornet, my mum played Eb horn for a short while and my dad plays, well, anything (but does the bass drum for marches) My family live miles away though.

BrightSpark.. Of course, Milliband is a southerner :-) First Labour leader for years. People are very intrigued as to what he is planning. Last year he refused to share a platform with Bob Crow, so cancelled.

PomBear - there is a lot of getting drunk (of course!), but most of it is banners, brass bands and politics. The best example of living politics that I have ever seen, which is weird, considering the mines have shut.

I'm almost certain I have met you... maybe I am mixing up usernames... Durham meetups... I haven't been for ages and ages though

It's probably me - do you live in the W near EW?
This is like a cryptic crossword!

WHAT?! An event in the NORTH that had not been rained off?!?!

Surely not!

Haha, no idea where EW is!

I live in the W that is the ancestral home of the first of 44...sounds like it has an ENORMOUS amount of laundry to do...I live next to something that sounds like someone is swearing about a mine...

My fb picture is me posing in a vintagey photo. I sell cosmetics and do OU, and post a lot about my quirky DD1 and my crazy little DD2...

Lol, we could totally just PM each other but I am enjoying this.

OK...I might even have you on facebook, but I am rubbish with matching up usernames to names and faces.

Kayano - I did ask an old miner if it would be cancelled and he looked at me as if i was mad ! :-)

The forecast isn't actually that bad for tomorrow up this way.

I have a photo of my gran in the 50s at the Durham miners Gala. She went every year up to about 1965. Pit widow in her 30s as granddad died in a mining accident in 1939.

Just seen that its tomorrow, sorry to miss it, sounds much better than the Sussex county show ( full of Barbours and people playing at being farmers)

It's like some secret fricking code!

lol - I live in wallsend next to swan hunters shipyard

(hardcore northern)

Just tell each other man!

TBF, I'm rubbish at being incognito on here, hence all the namechanges :D

OK, I live next to the F pit in Washington :-)

Even the was 6 foot of snow it would still go ahead - I do agree with DesperatelySeekingPomBears far too many people use it as an excuse to be drunk by 8am and cause trouble in town

I'm down the road in Newcastle, Kayano. Dp works in Wallsend, on the Tyne.

Eeeeeeee hey

off to namechange

Not really

I know who you are! And I'd figured out Washington before you said!

You got married last year?
Nice to see you again BTW

Nearly two years ago now :-) but yeah, hi :-)

wow time flies!!

:-)