Durham Miners' Gala
Rob Lowe
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The Gathering: in front of the County Hotel
Neil Kinnock’s face becomes a sculpture of itself, he up on a balcony, and above a miasmic crowd; the hero of radicalism grinning shiny and stonily behind ornately sculptured iron railings, Victorian, black though slightly rusted and peeling, as if flakes of tobacco were stuck in their edges. His suit is chainmail stiff; his bulky body does not fit its tailoring. If we were closer, and not amongst the restless bodies below, what would we see? Perhaps flickers of uncertainty, a fugitive look in his eyes, as if a miniature school-capped boy were poised to escape, at the corner of the lens crouched, does not know where to run: if he did, he would be launched into space, perhaps twenty feet over the gapers he would sail; then, galloping on air, like a swan paddle-steaming the water, he would fall, a hostage to the admirers in the street. So Mr. Kinnock hides his humanity, and Hollywood Kinnock stands there, in the form of his public image, like a Wild West extra on a nineteen thirties film lot. That year, he was already out of date. Yet between the figures on the balcony, co-ordinated by Kinnock (is it the Gods, or an Opera Box they occupy?), and the parade of banners (brought out like some Hindu gods annually), passing through a Red Sea of revellers, there is a camaraderie, exclusive as his shop mannequin mask: his “simplicity,” and the treacherous innocence of his rough-house brawler smile, carries him into their hearts. Mission accomplished, as the Easington Colliery Band, with its hymn in praise of Scargill approaches, he disappears; the luxury of the County has swallowed him up. Down below, a family group: mother, father, possibly uncle too, carry children on their shoulders. From where can the children see? They share an orange, discarding the wrenched peel. As the crowd heaves, jostles, slides into fissures, a summer tide caught within harbour walls, police officers talk: one complains of her back to a sympathetic male. Tourists ask for an explanation, foreigners at sea in this annual tide of tradition; where best to see what they do not understand; what will happen next; and next; and next… the condition of the tourist. A uniformed constable, one of five at a corner, high buildings behind, observes ‘there are too many of us… we should be getting down there’. Where, I do not know. But they remain, a graffiti of disciplined order, as the marchers flood on. A new banner grows larger. ‘Go Thou And Do Likewise,’ it proclaims in baroque font. In this storm of extremism, everyone wants to make a partisan impression, it seems. I meet a colleague in the throng, he is neat and out of place. ‘Hullo, Jim,’ I say. He has come for last-minute shopping ‘before they all close.’ His daughter, wide-eyed and ten, is there for the music – before the people have had too much to drink. In the parade, bass drums are prominent, avatars of dignity in an humility of bodies. Some are banged with absolute detachment, regular as a metronome, and with the volume of a town crier. Others, on straining bellies, make pregnant bulges. And still the march comes... marchers as to war. It seems endless. Watch this girl. Her eyes roll from side to side. The drum bulks in front of her. Again and again, she adjusts the strapping at her shoulders; her face remains plum-soft. She is immersed, the opposite of Aphrodite rising from the foam. |