60th Anniversary of The Easington Colliery Disaster Part 1

On 29th May 1951 at Easington Colliery occured the last major mining disaster in Great Britain when 81 miners plus 2 men of the rescue brigade lost their lives. On the 60th Anniversary of that sad day we paid tribute to those men with a march behind the colliery band and the Miner's Lodge Banner from the site of the colliery via a service in the church to the mass grave in the graveyard. Here the band entertains the procession across the road of the site of the colliery

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• coal_mining
• mining
• disaster
• explosion
• anniversary
• Easington
• Easington_Colliery
• brass_band
• banners
• procession
• in_memorium

[bassoprimo]

God Forbid! It's the Toccata from Suite Gothique, by Leon Boellman, arranged by Eric Ball. Fantastic music and entirely appropriate for a sombre event such as this. Only negative bit about it is the high wind does no favours to playing outside.

[DMMuseum]

@bassoprimo Thanks for the info. I recognised the music but could not put a name to it. The high wind ruined all attempts as recording the event and also caused the banner to tear in various places. It is going to take a lot of conservation work to get the banner into a state where it can be hung on display again.

[DMMuseum]

@nylonTS Have you seen our website on mining in Northumberland & Durham?  Currently running at over 73,000 html pages of info. Supposed to be the largest private website in Europe if not the World.

This stupid site will not allow me to post a web address!

Do a search for "Durham Mining Museum"

[nylonTS]

@DMMuseum We Have just been to the Mermorial today its a lovey place I only wished the weather had been better

My Partner comes from a Mineing Family from Northumberland

A very moveing mermorial thank you TS God Bless them All

[DMMuseum]

@nylonTS My pleasure. The event was not well advertised. I was there selling commemorative pairs of coffee mugs bearing all 83 names of the victims set on a background photo of the colliery just before closure

[nylonTS]

@DMMuseum It gets a better later on on the video so its not all bad thanks regards TS

[DMMuseum]

@nylonTS I agree that it is awful, not helped by the strong wind.  I would imagine that very few of the procession would recognise the music or appreciate its significance with the event. I am assuming it is Easington Colliery Band. If so they are no where near as good as I remember them

[nylonTS]

I dont know what that band is playing but its awfull