FORMA PRESENTS

THE MINERS HYmNS

A FILM BY BILL MORRISON WITH MUSIC BY JHaNN JHaNNSSON

As eloquent a working-class portrait as any Ken Loach lm... With Jhannssons gorgeous score providing mournful counterpoint to the visual world Morrison has both revived and created anew, The Miners Hymns leaves the audience with the ineffable sense of being between times, landscapes and emotions. True to the sacramental suggestion of the lms title, the feeling is a lot like prayer. The Washington Post

THE MINERS HYMNS

Focusing on the former Durham coalfield, The Miners Hymns is an homage in film and music to the coal mining history of North East England. The film, produced by Forma, marks the first collaboration between renowned American filmmaker Bill Morrison and acclaimed Icelandic musician and composer Jhann Jhannsson. Forma is working with a range of partners across the country to programme over thirty screenings and three live concert performances of the film. This tour is made unique by the distinct mix of nontraditional spaces and traditional arts venues presenting the work, most of which have been selected due to their connections with the coalmining heritage of the last century, and a lingering legacy of Britains industrial past. Collaged from archive film footage, The Miners Hymns celebrates the sense of vibrant community, rich, self-organised culture and the forbearance that characterised the lives of those who worked underground, and the places in which they lived, whilst marking the demise of the mining industry not only as the end of a way of life, but as the last gasp of the Industrial Revolution. In the shadow of our recent economic crisis, another watershed moment, this piece arguably offers a timely reminder of how we used to live and work in Britains industrial age. Filmmaker Bill Morrison sourced film footage from archives around the UK, including the BFI, the BBC, Amber Film & Photography Collective, the Northern Regional Film and Television Archive, and Yorkshire Film Archive. The earliest material is grainy Mitchell and Kenyon footage of the pit exit at Pendlebury Colliery in 1900, the film includes National Coal Board material, and of course draws on news reports of the Miners Strike from 1984-5. The film brings figures from the past to life in dramatic and compelling ways. A lot of my interest in archival films is in the ghosts, explains Morrison. These are recordings of people who a lot of the time are no longer with us or the reason why they assembled is no longer with us. Whats happened to the perspective of a piece of footage since it was first recorded? Whats happened to the footage and whats happened to our attitude towards it? The mining community didnt essentially change very much over the twentieth century, he continues, and the same sorts of things were interesting to filmmakers who were recording the lives of the miners: the political rallies, the Miners Gala, a day in the life of the miner, recreation, those sort of things. For me it became a game of collecting different types of shots over the decades and comparing them. What distinguishes The Miners Hymns from documentaries like those produced by the National Coal Board Film Unit is its emotional reach. Freed from the need to train or recruit, Morrison has given himself permission to diverge from a proscriptively linear narrative in the quest for more basic artistic truths, chipping away at his sources in pursuit of something gleaming and darkly precious. Jhann Jhannssons contemporary classical score draws freely upon the North Easts vibrant and symbolically important brass music heritage that stretches back almost two hundred years. An editorial in The Guardian argued that few sounds are as evocative of a place and time in British life as a colliery brass band: By turns magnificent and melancholy, a miners' band sings even now of a way of life in which the disciplines of some of the hardest physical work ever devised by humankind coexisted with the very different disciplines of creating something beautiful and haunting...Anyone who can remember the conflicted emotions of 3 March 1985, when the defeated miners marched back to work behind their brass bands after their year-long strike, is likely to retain the rich memory that, while the pit embodied life as it actually was, the brass band sang for life as it might be. A quarter of a century on, few of the pits now remain. Yet remarkably and appropriately several of the bands play on. 1 The elegiac texture of brass is perfectly suited to the dream-like footage that Morrison has assembled, embracing the resonant hymns that feature heavily in the repertoires of colliery bands, with Jhannsons score moving from dark and brooding minimalism to moments of rousing transcendence. The soundtrack for The Miners Hymns film was recorded in Durham Cathedral, performed by a specially assembled ensemble of colliery band players and classically trained musicians, accompanied by the celebrated organist Robert Houssart. The soundtrack has been released as a CD (FatCat Records, 2011), and has itself been the subject of considerable critical acclaim Alex Ross writing in the New York Times declared the recording the best film soundtrack of 2012. Players from the NASUWT Riverside Band, based in Chester-le-Street in County Durham, feature on the recording and formed half of the ensemble that premiered the work. They will form an integral element of this tour performing at all three live concerts programmed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the 1984-5 Miners Strike. Tony Thompson, manager of the Riverside Band states: It was a fantastic experience for the players to work on playing the music for The Miners Hymns in 2010 and we still reflect on this today. Musically it is very unusual for amateur brass band players to work in partnership with professional orchestral playersThe experience of playing and gravitas of this music when combined with the film footage is unprecedentedwe cant wait to get back together with Jhann and the rest of the players for the performances in 2014.
The Miners Hymns was initially produced by
Forma for Brass: Durham International Festival and premiered with live performances of the score in Durham Cathedral on 15 and 16 July 2010. As a nished lm, it had its worldwide premiere at The Tribeca Film Festival in New York during April 2011, followed by a UK premiere at The Shefeld Documentary Film Festival. 1. The Guardian, In Praise Of editorial, 1 March 2010 Below: Live performance in Durham Cathedral in July 2010, Colin Davison (2010), courtesy Forma

A HISTORY STILL BEING WRITTEN

LEE Hall
There is evidence of coal mining in Northern England since the Roman occupation. Long before the Industrial Revolution, when the North East stoked the industrial explosion, the ubiquity of the phrase taking coals to Newcastle as an expression of the unthinkable and redundant was testimony to the fact that the North East was synonymous with its chief export well beyond these shores. It would be surprising if such an important and long-lived activity did not leave its cultural mark, and, indeed, its manifestation in this respect is the incredible corpus of songs which together ranks as one of the most extraordinary flowerings of working class culture anywhere in the world. Many of these songs, which were largely written during the Industrial Revolution, though often with pre-industrial sentiments, were collected in the 1950s by Bert Lloyd and published as Come All Ye Bold Miners . This collection was a central inspiration to the post-war folk revival. But what is most prescient about the book was Lloyds tacit recognition of the unique culture where working life was documented and celebrated by the very people who lived it. The songs werent folk songs as such; they were mostly newly-minted to document specific events. Some of the authors were known and locally famous the great Tommy Armstrong, for instance. But many of these writers remain anonymous. This was a proper working class culture and there seemed nothing unusual about a miner also being a writer or song-smith. Indeed many of the most popular music-hall songwriters of the age, such as Geordie Ridley, were originally miners who had suffered illness or injury and were forced to pursue their working lives overground, but paid homage to the tradition by forging a culture of popular urban song, examples of which are sung to this day. We may think of the nineteenth century as the height of the Coal Age but in fact it reached its apogee in the mid-1920s when 1.2 million men worked underground. The number quickly shrank in the Great Depression and at the moment of nationalisation in 1947 the number had already halved. By the great strike of 1984 the numbers had fallen to around 250,000. However, when one considers the advances in mechanisation and all of those employed in the auxiliary industries, this was still a hugely significant percentage of the nations workforce. Margaret Thatchers government made a plea that far from being enemies of mining, per se, they were simply trying to make the industry efficient. However, Arthur Scargills prediction that the real agenda was to crush the industry, no matter what the cost, has been borne out. There are now less than 5,000 miners in the whole country, yet we still get a third of our energy from coal. Of course now the coal is shipped in from the Ukraine and beyond; and now there is a big pile of it on the Tyne, dumped from abroad. What was for generations the epitome of the unthinkable has actually happened in less than a quarter of a century. The decimation of the industry should not have come as a shock. The Thatcherite attitude to mining and the free market was always patently clear. One of the first things Thatcher did in 1979 was commission a secret report by Nicholas Ridley investigating how to take on the mining unions. It was shelved for being far too radical at the time, yet only five years later it was dusted down and followed to the letter. Vast public resources were levelled at crushing the publicly-owned industry. Theres enough coal down there to supply energy for a hundred years or so, but way before ecological problems were at the top of the political agenda, it was deemed to be a reasonable policy to decimate the industry on ideological grounds. What was more surprising in the wake of the defeat of the strike was the determination to obliterate the industry from the cultural landscape. I was shocked when travelling round the North East in the late 1990s, looking for locations for the filming of Billy Elliot , that there was almost no evidence of the industry which had been so dominant The battle against the unions during 1984 cost the state more than 20 million a week. But the cost of losing the industry, in terms of unemployment benefit, the health care, the failed attempts to save the local economies, has cost many billions. You just cant put a quarter of a million men (and they were mostly men) out of work and expect it to cost nothing. But what we have for that massive expenditure are crushed communities, horrific levels of mental health problems, illness and a listlessness of a group of people who for hundreds of years had vitally withstood the most terrible oppressions. Even at the height of the economic boom of the last decade, less than half the mining jobs lost nationally had been replaced in the former coalfields. The act of cultural obliteration was a crucial strategy for the wreckers. That these communities had managed to be self-determining places, rich with music and politics despite the extreme deprivation that were levelled against them by unregulated robber barons of capitalism, made a nonsense of the dominant ideological agenda. The memory had to be snuffed out. You dont have to be a cynic to make the connection with the present crisis. That weve so readily accepted the billions robbed from the public purse to prop up this generations robber barons, without so much as a whimper, seems almost incredible until we see how alienated we are from our roots. The distance between us, and those grandparents or greatgrandparents who fought for and won nationalisation, seem enormous. They reappropriated what had been taken from the people we are supinely giving it all back. Its only now that the real victory of the 1984-5 strike and its aftermath is coming into play. So in remembering, celebrating and lamenting our mining past were not paying homage to the dirt, the exploitation or the circumscribed lives of our forefathers and mothers. We are acknowledging their hope, their aspiration for a better world, but also their lack of tolerance, their anger, their belligerence, and their willingness not to accept the blatant lies they were told, their ability to organise and look after one another, their willingness to deprive themselves individually to fight for the common good. There is no romance in the history of mining there is only struggle. To hymn the miners is to see that the struggle, far from being over, is still going on, whether we want to admit it or not.
Lee Hall is a Newcastle-born writer whose plays have been produced for theatre, radio and television, and adapted as feature lms and musicals. He wrote

a decade before. In village after village I learned that the pit heaps had been grassed over, the wires to the cages cut, seams flooded, winding gears pulled out, pit-heads bulldozed. Quickly it became clear that the war on mining was much more than an industrial one. An act of cultural cleansing had taken place. Anything they could pull down or erase, they did. In the 1980s we were told that we lived in a postindustrial age, yet bought more and more factorymade products, and travelled more and more miles on combustion engines, as if all this happened by magic. Of course our lives are not post-industrial, its just that weve outsourced the exploitation. Safety standards in the Ukraine and China are equivalent to ours in the nineteenth century. But predictably they didnt manage to keep all the damage off-shore. The proud communities which once were home to unions, pit-head libraries, brass bands, co-op shops whose profits were distributed to those who used them were left bereft. Whilst the capitalists got rich from the privatisation of the nationalised industries, the people who paid for their utilities got relatively poorer and poorer.

Billy Elliot (1999), Cooking with Elvis (2000)

and The Pitmen Painters (2008); his screenplay for

Billy Elliot was nominated for an Academy Award.

Image from Portrait of a Miner, NCB, 1963 (BFI). Featured in The Miners Hymns.

EaCH FoR all all FoR EaCH

Brass band music has a long association with North East England and with coal mining in particular. One of the earliest known bands was the Coxlodge Institute Band of County Durham, which was founded in 1808. The band played at a ball to celebrate the sinking of a mine shaft at Gosforth Colliery, Newcastle, in 1821, when three hundred people danced to their music 1,100 feet underground. By the middle of the nineteenth century, musicmaking was, perhaps for the first time, a regular part of community life and not just a pastime for the upper or middle classes. Bands and choirs were springing up all over the country and their membership was predominantly from the working classes. By 1850 almost every village, mine and group of mills in the North of England had its own band and perhaps the majority of working class bandsmen were miners. The Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions of that time combined with urbanisation had far-reaching effects on the poorer people of Britain and on the structure of popular musical life. Following industrialisation, bands were formed by the workers in factories, mines and mills and although the working classes were required to work long hours for small wages, they grew to value what little leisure time they had, and this precious leisure time became more and more organised. The expansion and formalising of leisure time that took place from the mid-nineteenth century were two of the key social changes of the industrial age and the regular, weekly band rehearsal at a set place and time was the result of the new work discipline. Banding developed from the encouragement of enterprising industrialists and the middle class mill and mine owners for a variety of reasons; they were anxious to make festivities of opening ceremonies and workers treats and to add dignity to formal occasions such as political rallies and demonstrations. Some industrialists were committed to moral improvement and cultural reform and viewed music-making as a civilising influence, and as a force for moral and positive good amongst working people. Their support was also perhaps an attempt to gain some political control of the workers for fear of unrest and possible strike action, or even revolt. Another important aspect in the development of brass bands in the nineteenth century was the new opportunity that arose for the musicians to travel. Brass bands were in demand at seaside resorts, exhibitions, flower shows, Sunday-school outings and other community events, and the massive growth of cheap rail travel from the 1840s, was a critical influence. The railway companies, persuaded initially by Thomas Cook, made concessionary fares available and these became vital to the expansion of the brass band movement. Also of great importance was the endless opportunities banding provided for social activity. In the North East coalfields, the largest social event by far was the Durham Miners Gala, or The Big Meeting, held annually in July since 1871. At its height, the Gala attracted over 250,000 people, and was the largest Trade Union event in Europe. It was both a political event and a social festival. Michael Foot, the former leader of the Labour Party, spoke at the Durham Miners Gala on many occasions and he remembered it in this way: I started there in 1947. The Durham Miners Gala is a fine occasion today, taking place as it does in that beautiful city. But in those days it was absolutely sensational. There were so many Lodges you see and they had to start bringing them in at half past eight in the morning. The whole city absolutely throbbed with the thing from early in the morning right through until you left. And you left absolutely drunk with it I mean that metaphorically because there was very little actual In 1903, the Gala was established as an annual holiday. It became the one occasion in the year when people from across the coalfields met and renewed old friendships. This was particularly significant in mining, with its patterns of labour mobility associated with the closure of exhausted collieries and the opening of new ones. The Gala was part of the pattern of life and custom in the mining villages. Former miner, trade unionist and local MP Jack Lawson wrote about its significance in his 1932 book A Mans Life : The Big Meeting is almost as much a part of our mining life as the Cathedral is of Durham City. Like every other miner, I early found my way to the annual demonstration, and went regularly for many years. In time I went with my Lodge with band and banner, and a good following of members and their wives. I still go every year, for it is to me one of the most impressive and inspiring experiences any man can have. It is exhilarating to march with your band and banner, and also to watch this stirring spectacle from some high point of vantage, where you see it as a long continuous whole. Officially this gathering is called a gala, but to the miners and their wives, who come in from every part of Durham, it is The Big Meeting. Banner after banner, band after band, followed by the members of the Lodges and their wives. From remote places on moor and fell, and from huge collieries near the towns, they have marched: down from the boundaries of the coalfield, and up from the centre they have come keeping step all along the roads to lively tunes. Since eight in the morning they have been coming into the city of Durham, and even at noon the apparently endless march goes on. First comes the great banner carried by picked men, who must know how to carry themselves, or their strength will avail them little. Positing the poles in the brass cup resting on the chest, and held by leather straps on the shoulders, is a great art. The colliery banner is almost a personality. Much thought has been given to colour, design and size. Many have been the consultations with the artist and the firm chosen to carry out the wishes of the Lodge in the matter of bringing this banner to life, and one of the great days in the history of the colliery was the unveiling of it. A colliery without a banner is almost unthinkable. Deep debate on design and finance go to the making of it, and he is an honoured man who is chosen to cut the silken cord and speak to the great crowd which gathers at its unfurling. No regimental flag is dearer to the soldier than that emblem, showing the Good Samaritan tending the stricken wayfarer, in a setting of red, blue and gold, is to the miner. The officials of the Lodge walk with pride beneath their banner, while behind comes the band and the men and women of the colliery. Down the main street they walk, between walls of spectators massed

together on either side. Greetings are called by the onlookers to friends and relatives in the procession, and hands are gripped as they pass on. Sometimes the march is slowed down: sometimes it is stopped, marchers and spectators blocking the long street as far as eye can see. The Gala was also an occasion to honour miners who had died in accidents over the previous year. Lodges where a member had been killed carried their banners draped in a black cloth, and the speeches were preceded by a colliery brass band playing Gresford , known also as The Miners Hymn . This deep significance of death as a source of unity came over powerfully at Galas that took place after such major losses of life. In 1951, for example, two major explosions took place in Durham mines, the worst at Easington Colliery where 83 men died. In that year, an enormous number of miners attended the Gala. So dense were the crowds that the speeches had begun before all the lodges had paraded through to the Racecourse. Then: Away up on the brow of the hill was a lone banner, moving slowly over the heads of the vast crowds. Standing with the Lodge officials was the vicar of the local church. There was no band, no fuss, just a banner like scores of others stationed around the Racecourse. The banner, with its black drape, had last been carried in respect and honour of men who were lost in the great disaster, and in that same respect and honour it was carried and greeted through its long day. Yes, it was Easington. This banner became the cynosure of every

Each for All, All for Each was the slogan carried on the Boldon Lodge banner in the mid1920s, reflecting the growing association with and influence of the Labour movement, and the idea of the strength in unity of working people. So, the histories of the mining communities, their resilience, strength and beliefs can be understood through the Gala itself, the village festival in which miners and their families came together in the city at the centre of the coalfield. Music had a central place in the event and in the communities themselves, contributing to the shared experience and identity of the mining culture.
David Metcalfe is Artistic Director of Forma, producers of

The Miners Hymns.

With thanks to Ray Farr for brass

eye as it was borne aloft through the tens of thousands in the streets of Durham, along North Road up the steep Silver Street, and over Elvet to the Racecourse. Reverend Beddoes, Vicar of Easington, said of its reception: It was met by all the expressions of sympathy and love that the good hearts of Durham could command. It was met with bared heads, with cheers and with silence and with tears, and our men will never have a better memorial than the one which lives in the hearts of Durham mining folk. Men and women fondled the cloth as though they were trying to shake hands with the men who gave their lives. (Durham Miners Association General Secretarys Annual Report, 1952)

band history, and with additional quotations from

The Iconography of the Durham Miners Gala, by Huw

Benyon and Terry Austrin, Journal of Historical Sociology, March 1989. Far left: Image from The Big Meeting, NCB, 1963 (BFI). Bottom left: Image from Mining Review, NCB, 1948 (BFI). This page: Image from The Big Meeting, NCB, 1963 (BFI). All featured in The Miners Hymns.

gRESFoRD
The title The Miners Hymns is a tribute by the artists to the composition by Hebburn miner Robert Saint, Gresford , known widely as The Miners Hymn . This piece of music continues to have great significance to coal mining communities, reflecting their social and musical heritage. Gresford has been performed regularly by colliery bands and choirs and marks one of Britains worst coal mining disasters. On the 22 September 1934 an explosion and fire underground claimed the lives of 266 men and boys at the Gresford Colliery near Wrexham. The Gresford mine had deep shafts but, despite complaints of poor ventilation, heat and the dangerous use of explosives, few improvements had been made. The massive explosion trapped 254 men deep underground, only six managed to escape the subsequent inferno and despite many brave attempts just eleven bodies were recovered. Three rescuers and a surface worker also died. Conditions in the rest of the mine became so hazardous that Gresford was closed after the explosion and by the end of September 1,100 Gresford miners had signed on as unemployed. A relief fund to aid the dependents of the disaster raised over 500,000. No judgement was made about the cause of the explosion, either at the enquiry or at the at court proceedings. Indeed, the court didnt call the colliery owners to give evidence; the only conviction upheld against the management at Gresford Colliery was for inadequate record-keeping for which they were fined 150. The Labour politician, Sir Stafford Cripps cited evidence from the Gresford enquiry in his call for the coal industry to be nationalised. This eventually occurred in 1947 when he became Minister for Economic Affairs and the National Coal Board was established. Gresford finally closed in 1973 and a memorial to the victims of the disaster was erected in 1982. A popular broadsheet ballad, which was said to have been written by one of the survivors, was circulated in the weeks after the disaster: Down there in the dark they are lying, They died for nine shillings a day; They have worked out their shift and now they must lie; In the darkness until judgement day.
Margaret Hanlon is Publicity Manager for The Snowdown Colliery Welfare Male Voice Choir

drunkenness in my opinion the music, the banners and all in that beautiful city. It overwhelmed you really. In those days it was, far and away, the best working class festival that there was in this country. Far and away the best. It was just marvellous. The miners were a vital group in the history of the British working class. In 1910 the miners unions had six times as many members as the next largest union. When Michael Foot first visited Durham, there were three quarters of a million miners organised in the National Union of Mineworkers.

Gresford was performed by the Snowdown Colliery

Welfare Male Voice Choir on 10 October at The Factory in Cheriton as part of Strange Cargos accompanying programme to the screening of

The Miners Hymns. On 22 February, the

Ferryhill Town Band will perform Gresford at Spennymoor Settlements Everyman Theatre. Left:Gresford mining disaster: relatives wait for news at the pit head Bishop Marshall for the Daily Herald, 1934

ToUR lISTINgS 13/14

FoRTHCoMINg SCREENINgS NoVEMbER 5 Nov 7.30pm St John's Community Church In assoc. with Flatpack Projects High Street Chase Terrace Burntwood Staffordshire WS7 1LR www.flatpackfestival.org.uk Author David Bell ( The Dirty Thirty: Heroes of the Miners Strike ) will give an insight into the Staffordshire mining industry. Plus the Media Archive for Central England will be supplying rarely seen archive footage of miners in the Midlands. 6 Nov 6.30pm Tyneside Cinema 10 Pilgrim Street Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 6QG www.tynesidecinema.co.uk Followed by a Q&A featuring Dr Carol Stephenson from Northumbria University and political activist and writer Dave Douglass. 8 Nov 6.45pm National Media Museum Bradford West Yorkshire BD1 1NQ www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk 9 Nov 2pm Winding House Cross Street New Tredegar NP24 6EG www.windinghouse.co.uk 10 Nov 4pm Showroom 15 PaternosterRow Sheffield S1 2BX www.showroomworkstation.org.uk/showroom BFI Archive film, Songs of The Coalfields , featuring a selection of well-known mining ballads sung by Ewan MacColl and Isla Cameron, will screen before The Miners Hymns . Formas Artistic Director, David Metcalfe, will take part in a Q&A after the screening. 13 Nov 6.30pm Bilston Town Hall In assoc. with Flatpack Projects, in collaboration with Wolverhampton Art Gallery and with support from Gazebo and Bilston Town Hall. 31 Church Street Bilston WV14 0AH www.flatpackfestival.org.uk Alongside the film, Flatpack will screen a selection of archive shorts, including rarely seen footage from The Media Archive for Central England. Author David Bell ( The Dirty Thirty: Heroes of the Miners Strike ) will also be joining the event. 17 Nov 5.20pm National Media Museum Bradford West Yorkshire BD1 1NQ http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk 19 Nov 5pm The Academy at Shotton Hall In assoc. with The Forge Passfield Way Peterlee SR8 1NX 0191 518 0222 via Kathryn Harrop k.harrop@shottonhallschool.co.uk Featuring a live performance from the Academys Brass Band, and including access to objects from Beamishs Mining Life collection. The venue is wheelchair accessible and parking is available. 20 Nov 6.30pm The Hazelwell Centre In assoc. with The Forge Windsor Terrace Haswell DH6 2DY 0191 526 7455 centre@hazelwell.eclipse.co.uk The screening will be followed by a talk from Jonathan Kindleysides, Assistant Keeper of Mining Life at the Beamish, who will be sharing objects from the museums Mining Life collection. Please reserve your free ticket by phone or email. The venue is wheelchair accessible. 22 Nov 6pm Blackhall Community Centre, In assoc. with The Forge Hesleden Road Blackhall Hartlepool TS27 4LG 0191 586 7396 The film will be introduced by Barry Chambers, Chairman of the Blackhall Banner Committee, and following the screening local councillor, Rob Crute will speak about mining. Beamish staff will bring a range of Mining Life objects. The venue is wheelchair accessible, with parking and refreshments available. 23 Nov 6pm Dawdon Youth and Community Centre, In assoc. with The Forge Queen Alexandra Road Seaham SR7 7NH 0191 513 1777 Dawdon provided one of the locations for Lee Halls celebrated film, Billy Elliot . The Beamish will be share a range of Mining Life objects from their collection. The venue is wheelchair accessible with limited car parking available. DECEMbER 6 Dec 7.30pm Artspace Cinderford The New Mercury 3 Woodside Street Cinderford Gloucestershire GL14 2NL www.artspacecinderford.org The film will be screened as part of a larger event, including displays from Engage Youth Circus, a specifically devised dramatic performance from Discover Drama, and an exhibition of visual and photographic work by Artspace participants and tutors. The event will conclude with a screening of The Miners Hymns at 9pm. 15 Dec 5.30pm Hyde Park Picture House 73 Brudenell Road Headingley Leeds West Yorkshire LS6 1JD www.hydeparkpicturehouse.co.uk JaNUaRY 18 Jan 6.15pm Phoenix 4 Midland Street Leicester LE1 1TG www.phoenix.org.uk 23 Jan 6.15pm Eden Court Bishops Road Inverness IV3 5SA www.eden-court.co.uk FEbRUaRY 6 Feb 7.30pm Star and Shadow Cinema Stepney Bank Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 2NP www.starandshadow.org.uk Adrin Neatrours documentary Report from the Northern Coal Face will be screened before the main feature. Featuring unique footage shot by pitmen themselves, this short film follows the trail of three miners, who once worked in the South Northumberland coalfields. 7 Feb 6.30pm National Coal Mining Museum for England New Road Overton Wakefield West Yorkshire WF4 4RH www.ncm.org.uk The screening will be followed by stories of working in the mines and living in coal mining communities told by the staff and volunteers at the museum. Tickets 5 via 01924 848806 or www.ncm.org.uk. 18 Feb 6pm Cornerhouse 70 Oxford Street Manchester M1 5NH www.cornerhouse.org 21 Feb 7.30pm The Town Hall In assoc. with Mid Pennine Arts Burnley Road Padiham Burnley Lancashire BB12 8BS www.midpenninearts.org.uk The screening will be introduced by Bob Clark, ex-miner and Padiham town councillor.

22 Feb 7pm Spennymoor Settlements Everyman Theatre OHanlon Street (Off King Street) Spennymoor County Durham DL16 6RY www.spennymoorsettlement.co.uk/purchasetickets.html The event will include a reading of mining stories penned by miner and former member of the Spennymoor Settlement, the late Sid Chaplin, and a performance by The Ferryhill Town Band (formerly Mainsforth Colliery Band) whose repertoire for the evening will include Gresford - The Miners Hymn . LIVE PERFoRMaNCES 5 Mar 7.30pm Sage Gateshead St Marys Square Gateshead Quays Gateshead NE8 2JR For further details and to book tickets visit www.theminershymns.com. 7 Mar 8pm Easington Social Welfare Centre Seaside Lane South Back Easington Colliery Peterlee County Durham SR8 3PL For further details and to book tickets visit www.theminershymns.com. 9 Mar 7.30pm Barbican Silk Street London EC2Y 8DS www.barbican.org.uk

INTERNaTIoNal 8 Feb 8pm Centre for the Arts at Virginia Tech Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA 24061-0002 www.artscenter.vt.edu/Online 11 Feb 7.30pm Newman Center for the Performing Arts University of Denver 2344 East Iliff Avenue Denver, Colorado 80208 www.newmancenterpresents.com 14 Feb 8pm Royce Hall UCLA 340 Royce Drive Los Angeles, CA 90095 http://cap.ucla.edu/music 21 Feb 8.30pm Muziekgebouw aan t IJ Piet Heinkade 1 Amsterdam, 1019 BR www.muziekgebouw.nl PREVIoUS SCREENINgS 19 & 20 July 7pm Brass: Durham International Festival Durham 26 August 11am, 1pm, 3pm Kent Miners Festival Elvington 7 Sep 11am, 1pm Snibston Miners Gala at Snibston Discovery Museum Coalville

25 Sep 6.30pm Glasgow Film Theatre Glasgow 30 Sep 7pm Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron In assoc. with Flatpack Projects Telford 5 Oct 7pm QUAD Derby 10 Oct 6.30pm Strange Cargo at The Factory Cheriton 13 Oct 5pm Chapter Cardiff 16 Oct 7.30pm Moston Small Cinema Moston 17 Oct 7pm Florence Mine Egremont 19 Oct 6pm Polesworth Memorial Hall In assoc. with Flatpack Projects Polesworth 23 Oct 7pm Stoke-on-Trent Film Theatre In assoc. with Staffordshire Film Archive Stoke-on-Trent 24 Oct 7pm Dalmellington Bowling Club In assoc. with Glasgow Films Pop-Up! Programmers Dalmellington

PREVIoUS EVENTS

EMoTIoNal RESPoNSES To THE MINERS HYMNS aT CoalbRooKdalE MUSEUM On Monday 30 September Flatpack held the first of the four Midlands screenings in the atmospheric surroundings of Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron. Even before arriving we knew wed find an enthusiastic crowd all the advance tickets had been snapped up a week beforehand but nothing prepared us for the reaction that the film provoked. Setting the scene, Senior Curator at the museum Matt Thompson provided a whistlestop tour of the local areas mining heritage; a landscape of small-scale family-owned pits very different from the big coal wed see later on. Then after showing an archive compilation provided by the Media Archive for Central England including footage of Ironbridge and the Black Country, it was time for the main feature. Talking to people afterwards, it was clear that the film had hit home. One man, a miner for sixty years, was lost for words, while a woman talked of losing her father in a North East coal mine as a child. Audience reactions included: Superb film poignant and very powerful Amanda, Telford

Very moving film, fabulous music Sheena, Much Wenlock I thought it was a triumph. The score and editing was a perfect compliment to the lives of those who lived and died at the coalface Shane, Coalbrookdale It should be compulsory viewing for 6th form students, arts students, and history students. Brought back memories of strike how did we let it happen and end like this? Anonymous audience member
Ian Francis is Creative Director of Flatpack

A SUCCESSFUl SCREENINg FoR STRaNgE CaRgo aT THE FaCToRY Strange Cargo presented The Miners Hymns at The Factory in Cheriton on Thursday 10 October to a packed out auditorium. The event was preceded by a performance from Snowdown Colliery Welfare Male Voice Choir and an introduction to mining in the region by local historian and Kent Miners Festival organiser, Jim Davies. This was the first time that Strange Cargo had screened a film at The Factory so Forma sent along screening equipment in the capable hands of Technical Director, Sam Collins. The choirs performance and the talk by Jim Davies brought in a local crowd and bolstered the audiences anticipation for the screening of The Miners Hymns . The team at Strange Cargo were delighted with how well received the film was, and how people raved about it afterwards. The heritage captured in the film spoke to the experiences of many in the audience:

I was born and brought up in Wigan, Lancashire. My Dad was a miner who hated the work and moved into office work for the National Coal Board. I grew up and ended up marrying a policeman who was involved in the Miners Strike in Sheffield Paula, New Romney My grandfather was educated and apprenticed as a mining engineer in Durham and was later Chief Inspector of Mines during the 1934 Gresford disaster, and led the ensuing enquiry Anonymous audience member Being over 50 I still remember the Miners Strike - my Dad policed the strike - and I feel strongly that the collieries should not have shut Deborah, Folkestone You can share your experiences of the film and your mining heritage at www.theminershymns.com.
Abigail Addison is Project Manager for

The Miners Hymns UK Tour.

Left: Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron event, Sarah Hamilton Baker (2013), courtesy Flatpack. Above: Strange Cargos screening of

The Miners Hymns, Forma (2013)

MINERS baNNERS
The Great Northern Coalfield was at its peak in 1913 employing nearly quarter of a million men and boys, producing over 56 million tons of coal annually from about 400 pits. Towns and villages in County Durham such as Seaham Harbour and Easington Colliery owe their very existence to coal. Mining changed the landscape, the patterns of settlement and the traditions and way of life of the region. The colliery at Easington was one of the last in the region to be closed in 1993, and while the black and white footage from The Miners Hymns seems to belong to another, harder, dirtier, forgotten time, these scenes are still recalled vividly, and often fondly, by many County Durham residents. Work to reclaim former industrial sites was swift and brutal, with few physical remains of this once dominant industry in existence. Yet the communities which thrived around the collieries are still proud of their heritage, rooted in hard work and cooperation. The Lodges of the Durham Miners Association all had their own distinctive banners often representing biblical or socialist themes. These banners, and the slogans on them inspired the titling of the six musical movements of The Miners Hymns . New banners, created by communities celebrating their mining heritage, are still paraded to Durham Cathedral as part of the Durham Miners Gala each year. The Gala remains a celebration of the areas mining heritage and links to the trade union movement and in recent years has seen a resurgence in the numbers attending the event despite there being no deep mines remaining in the Durham Coalfield. The Gala is one of the most recognisable uses of trade union banners in the United Kingdom. Some banners were home made, but most of them were purchased, either from another lodge or from a banner making company. From the middle of the nineteenth century, the London-based company of George Tutill was the main manufacturer of banners. Depending on the money they had to spend, groups could design their own banner or choose a design from a patternbook which included several themes. Since the last March 2014. We will be working with people in Easington Colliery to explore, celebrate and share their mining heritage and to engage a generation of residents who do not remember the pit wheel at the end of the street or the cooperation between families during the Miners Strike of 1984-5. The performance of The Miners Hymns in the Welfare Hall will be the culmination and celebration of this work in Easington and an opportunity for local people to demonstrate the pride which still exists in their community. From 27-30 March, Beamish will also host a display of mining banners as part of the museums Old King Coal event which celebrates the coal mining heritage of the region. This year the event will include the work that we have done with the community of Easington and banner groups from the area will be invited to parade through the museum in a stunning display of union pageantry. 2014 also marks the 30 year anniversary of the start of the Miners Strike in March 1984; a struggle which had an immense and enduring impact on pit communities across the region. In 2009 Heather Wood, a resident of Easington and one of the driving forces behind Save Easington Area Mines (SEAM), donated the groups archive to Beamish, The Living Museum of the North and this unique and varied collection including the manuscript of a play which the group wrote and then performed in New York, will also be displayed during Old King Coal.
Helen Barker Head of Community Participation at Beamish, The Living Museum of the North Beamish Museum in County Durham is an open-air museum which brings to life the stories of ordinary people living in towns and pit villages across the north east at the turn of the twentieth century. Above: Members of NUM Harraton Lodge with their banner, taking part in the procession at Durham Miners Gala. Chester le Street.

option was considerably cheaper, the majority of the banners in the Beamish collection have a pattern book design. The design, themes, symbols and colours used on the banners all have specific meanings. Some of the most common themes depicted include, All Men Are Brethren showing two workers shaking hands watched by an angel standing in between them; Bear One Anothers Burden in which a man in a sick bed, with his wife standing by his side, is visited by one or two officials who provide them with financial aid; Emancipation of Labour illustrated by a woman, wearing a breastplate of progress and a flag, leading a large group of people to an idyllic world and Unity is Strength depicted by the fable of the bundle of sticks in which a boy is shown easily snapping a single twig whilst an adult male us unable to snap a bundle of sticks bound together. The story of the communities who marched behind these banners and the sense of pride and solidarity which they shared is the starting point for the work which Beamish will do in the lead up to the performance of The Miners Hymns in Easington Welfare Hall in

PRodUCTIoN CREdITS

The Miners Hymns was produced by Forma and was an original commission for BRASS Durham International Festival 2010. Enabled by Northern Film + Media and the UK Film Council's Digital Film Archive Fund, supported by the National Lottery and Arts Council England.
Forma would like to thank Beamish and all of our screening partners. The tour has been enabled by Arts Council Englands Strategic Touring Programme. For information on how to buy The Miners Hymns on DVD, CD and other formats please visit www.theminershymns.com

FINd US aT www.facebook.com/pages/theminershymns twitter.com/theminershymns #TheMinersHymns www.theminershymns.com FoRMa 2-8 Scrutton Street London EC2A 4RT Forma Arts and Media Limited is a company registered in England and Wales at the address above. Registration no. 4338639; Charity no: 1152156

The Miners Hymns UK Tour Newspaper, second edition, published November 2013, Forma and contributors
Front cover: Image from Methodism and the Miner (BFI).