Bowburn Banner Group News    

(Last updated 3rd Juy 2008)

Sponsors

Bowburn Banner Group is pleased to report recent donations from sponsors Travis Perkins, R&C Builders and Co-operative Funeral Care. Links to both companies’ websites are now on our “links & contacts” web-page. (See above.) Without the help of local businesses, as well as fundrasing, such as the RAFFLE (hint ! – see below), and many individual donations, we would not be able to cover the £2,000+ cost of the “Big Meeting” weekend, let alone the annual running costs of insurance etc.

Thanks also to Northumbrian Water, who are providing free bottles of '97' tap water for the band on Gala Day.

Thanks to everyone who has helped.

Trigger portrait raffle

There are still tickets available for the Banner Group’s prize draw.  First prize is a superb oil painting by John Barker but there are many other prizes too.

The draw will be made on Friday 11th July, in the interval during the Ohio Brass Band’s Eve of Gala concert, in Bowburn Community Centre.

Ohio Brass Band jets in this week

          Excitment is mounting in the lead up to this year’s Miners’ Gala.

The Ohio Brass Band is flying into Manchester this Friday (4th July). The band’s members will arrive in Durham that afternoon and members of Bowburn Banner Group will meet up with them, to welcome them to England.

Their first concert is on Saturday 5th July, in the Gala Theatre, where they will open up for the world-famous Brighouse & Rastric Brass Band. This will mark the launch of the Durham Brass Festival 2008. “Our” band will play two further concerts during the ensuing week – in the University Music Department’s concert hall on Wednesday 9th July and then in BOWBURN COMMUNITY CENTRE on Friday the 11th.  This Eve of Gala celebration will be FREE and it is hoped that Bowburn will give them a hearty welcome.

On Big Meeting Day itself, the band will lead the parade through Bowburn, setting off from behind the Hare & Greyhound at 8.30am. Behind them will be Bowburn’s Children’s Banner and behind that the Centenary Banner. The route – up Surtees Avenue, into Lawson Road, back via Edward Avenue to the Co-op, and from there to the two memorials at the bottom of Prince Charles Avenue – will be closed to traffic for an hour.

Buses will be ready to take all who wish into Durham, from Prince Charles Avenue, at 9.30am. We'll then march from the New Inn, down New Elvet and past the Royal County Hotel on the way to the Racecourse.

At the Royal County, we can expect quite a welcome, as this is the first American band to play there since a US Air Force band played the Tanfield Lodge banner in, in 1961. That was a sensation then, and is still remembered. It would be marvellous if a really good contingent from Bowburn helped make the Ohio Brass Band’s appearance there this year something that will also be remembered with pride for many years to come. BE THERE!

 

Ohio Brass Band will play in the Bowburn Banners

The first band from the United States of America to appear at the Durham Miners’ Gala since 1961 will play in the two Bowburn Banners at this year’s “Big Meeting”.

The Bowburn Centenary Banner and the Bowburn Children’s Banner will march proudly behind the Ohio Brass Band, first through Bowburn and then through the City of Durham, on Saturday 12th July 2008.

The parade will assemble near the Hare & Greyhound (but away from the main road) in time to set off at 8.30am. From there it will go up Surtees Avenue to Lawson Road, then back to the Co-op, and down the the two memorials near the entrance to Prince Charles Avenue. Buses will be then available to take people in to Durham at 9.30am.

The night before, on Friday 11th July, the Ohio Brass Band, directed by Paul Droste, will perform at the Eve of Gala Concert, in Bowburn Community Centre. This concert will be by FREE ADMISSION, at the request of the band. Donations for the band will, however, be invited. Doors open at 6.30pm. Bar open from 7.00pm.

More details are in the latest edition of Bowburn Interchange, which is due out during week-beginning 15th June. (A copy can be downloaded from the “Past Issues” page of the Interchanges website.)

Concert Re-union

Notice of the Banner Group’s charity concert on Friday 14th March has been put on the front page of the bowburn.net website.  (Thanks George!)  Full details of venue, times and ticket prices can be seen there.  We are most grateful to local celebrity Brenda Collins, still better known to some as Brenda Swainston, for setting this up.

The concert will bring together The Krack of Dorn, forty years after they first sang together. (If the Spice Girls can do it, then why not Bowburn’s own show group?!) Here is a photograph sent to us by Brenda.

 

The concert on 14th March will also feature 60s and 70s music from top club entertainers Key Largo, who have also been good supporters of the Bowburn banners. All proceeds will go to the Bowburn Banner Group – not least to help make sure we get a really good band for Bowburn on Miners’ Gala Day this year and beyond.  (News about this year’s band will be announced in the March edition of Bowburn Interchange.)

Conservation award

Sarah Maisey, who assisted with the conservation of Bowburn’s 1920 Edith Cavell banner, reached the last three in this year’s Student Conservator of the Year Award contest.  Although she did not win first prize, her research on the materials used to paint our banner, and on its history, added valuable knowledge about our piece of national heritage.

The latest Conservation Awards 2007 magazine, “Awards Despatch”, carried the following article.

 

Please note, though, that we did NOT parade this precious banner at the 2006 Gala! It is on permanent display, properly protected, in Bowburn Community Centre, Durham Road, Bowburn, Durham, DH6 5BB.

Celebrating Miners’ Lodge Banners – Saturday 8th  September

A unique exhibition of Durham miners’ lodge banners was on display in Bowburn Community Centre in September.

While castles and stately homes open their doors to the public all over the country during this Heritage Open Days weekend, the Bowburn Banner Group, with the help of Durham Mining Museum, the National Union of Mineworkers (Durham Area) and numerous banner groups and ex-miners’ lodges, brought together over twenty unique banners from around the coalfield. On display were banners dating from every decade from the 1890s to the 2000s, some rarely if ever seen out, because of their frail condition… including, of course, Bowburn’s own four superb old and new banners.

Admission will be free.  All welcome.  Open from 10.00am till 4.00pm.

Thanks are also due to Durham County Council’s Community Heritage Officer and the City Council’s Heritage Open Days organisers, for their help in making this exciting event possible.

Plans are now underway to organise another such event on Saturday 13th September 2008.

Banner Mugs for sale

The Banner Group has obtained pot mugs showing the four Bowburn banners now in the village: the 1920 Edith Cavell banner, the 1959 Racecourse banner, the 2006 Children’s Banner and the 2006 Centenary Banner.

Priced at £5, they will help raise funds for the annual Durham Miners’ Gala Day celebrations and other Banner Group expenses.

       

                                                                 

 

Big Meeting celebrations 2007   (updated)

This year’s Durham Miners’ Gala – the Big Meeting – was on Saturday 14th July. Bowburn’s two new banners, which took part for the first time in our centenary year, last year, were again paraded through Bowburn and Durham City.  This must have been the biggest parade for years!

The Shepherd Building Group Brass Band (the former Rowntrees, or “Cocoa”, Band) again came up from York to help us celebrate.  They gave a superb concert in Bowburn Community Centre the night before.  Though the concert was free, the turn-out was disappointing.  We could blame the AWFUL weather, or the date (Friday the 13th!)… but perhaps we should have charged for admission, to “prove” how good the band was?  Those who came certainly enjoyed an excellent evening and they were generous at the raffle and sale-of-goods stalls.  Thank you to all of them. It was good to talk to members of the band, at the bar, afterwards, too.

Earlier in the evening, the free children’s disco was well attended. This is a family weekend and the Banner Group was very pleased at how many children and young people turned out both on this evening and the next day.

Help with the evening’s costs was kindly donated by C&A Pumps. Donations from elsewhere are always welcome, however, to cover the £3,000+ needed for the weekend as a whole. If we are to celebrate on this scale every year, then significant funding needs to be raised.

On the Saturday, the parade assembled in the Crowtrees WM Club car park and set off down the front street at 8.30am. The weather had now totally changed from the night before and there were a LOT of people around as we turned in at the post office (as last year) and marched up to Prince Charles Avenue.  There we diverted slightly, for the band to play at the war memorial, and then proceeded up Bede Terrace (North) and through to Dallymore Drive. The band played at a number of stopping points on the way and was enjoyed by all.

The buses that took us into Durham were free again - though donations were willingly accepted!  Next year we may have to charge fares.

In Durham, we set off from the New Inn, at the top of Church Street, at about 10.00am, and marched with our banners and our band down New Elvet, towards the Royal County Hotel and then to the Racecourse.  There were HUGE crowds this year.  The best since the 1970s, we thought.  (Will they have to start boarding up the shop windows again, we wonder, because of the crush?!)  The “Bowburn March” was played in front of the Royal County balcony and got a great reception.

On the Racecourse, we managed again to get the spot where Bowburn’s banner always used to be “parked”, before the pit closed. Excellent!  Then we went our various ways to enjoy the fun fair, the speeches or the pubs, depending on our inclinations.  Most of us visited the Durham Photographic Society’s display in the large Refreshments Tent, which included an exhibition of photographs of the Bowburn banners and Bowburn people taken in 2006. What a talented lot they are – the photographers, that is, though so of course are the people of Bowburn!

The banner was lifted form the Racecourse at 3.00pm and we proceeded slowly through the crowds back down Old Elvet and up the hill to the buses.  An excellent day!

Other forthcoming events  (updated)

Saturday 8th September:  “Celebrating Miners’ Lodge Banners”, in Bowburn Community Centre.  A large number of miners’ lodge banners, both originals and replicas, plus community banners created in that proud tradition, will be on display as part of the Civic Trust’s national Heritage Open Days weekend.  They are expected from all over the Durham coalfield, together with members of the various banner groups, now growing in number.

Forthcoming:  Brenda Collins concert, in Bowburn Community Centre.  Bowburn’s own celebrity singer and comedienne is returning “home” for this special concert, in support of the Banner Project.  Date to be arranged.

Earlier Bowburn Banner Group News

Fishburn Band concert and Bowburn Junior School  (May 2007)

The award-winning Fishburn Band played for the Banner Group again in Bowburn Community Centre on Friday 4th May.  They gave a first class concert.

During the interval, special editions of the score of “The Bowburn March” – composed by Ray Farr, specially to mark last year’s centenary celebrations – were presented to Bowburn Library and to Bowburn Junior School.  It is hoped that, in years to come, children at the school who are learning to play brass instruments will be able to play this rousing number, or join in when it is played by an adult band.  (Who knows – might Bowburn one day have its own brass band?)

Thanks are due to all concerned – to the Band itself, and to Carrie and others at the Centre, for making the evening go so well.

Thanks too to members of Durham Photographic Society, for helping us to build further on our records of Banner Group events.  Some excellent examples can be seen on: John Gordon’s photos of the Fishburn Band concert

There will be an exhibition of the Durham Photographic Society’s photos of the Bowburn banners at the Miners’ Gala on Saturday 14th July.  Make sure you look out for their tent and visit them.
 

Travis & Perkins offer sponsorship  (May 2007)

Travis Perkins, a leading company in the builders’ merchanting and home improvement markets, has generously offered to sponsor the Bowburn Banner Group.  This is a big boost to the Group, which faces high annual costs to cover insurance, band hire, transport and road closures on Big Meeting Day.

Photographic record of Bowburn’s Centenary Banner  (December 2006)

Friday 15th December:  Video and photographic displays about the Bowburn Centenary Banner and the 2006 Durham Miners’ Gala, Bowburn Community Centre, 12.00 noon till 9.00pm.

This will include a large number of photographs, taken at every location and from every angle throughout the day (including inside the Cathedral) by members of the Durham Photographic Society.  There will also be a variety of slideshows, on two screens.

Attendance at the evening session of this exhibition will be restricted to those joining in the end-of-year Centenary festivities with the Big Bush Band.  (Get your ticket now!)

The Edith Cavell Banner is now on display in Bowburn  (September 2006)

A wonderful welcome was given to the return of the Edith Cavell Banner on Friday 8th September.  This is the banner that was believed lost for ever but then (in 2005) found to have been rescued by Arthur Moyes, author of the first Banner Book about Durham Miners' banners in the 1970s.

The banner had been reduced to two large fragments by the time he acquired it – the central panels, with portraits of Nurse Edith Cavell on one side and John Wilson MP on the other, and the top part, with "Durham Miners Association" and "Bowburn Lodge" on.  These have now been cleaned and carefully sewn on to a back cloth (with the John Wilson side hidden), to look like the original banner.  (Thanks are again due, for this, to the excellent support of the Heritage Lottery Fund.)

The banner is now installed in the second marvellous banner case, designed and produced by Mr. John Johnson, in Bowburn Community Centre.

Its welcome included a fantastic concert by the Fishburn Band, with guest singer Brenda Collins, which was greatly enjoyed by an audience of nearly 200.  The banner itself was unveiled by Arthur Moyes himself.

Centenary Banner on parade  (September 2006)

On Sunday 17th September, Bowburn’s new Centenary Banner joined its first parade outside Bowburn since the Big Meeting.  It was marched proudly with ten other banners and the Craghead Band to the New Herrington mining memorial, where an impressive service took place.

No less than three further outings are now lined up.  Any one who would like to join members of the Banner Group would be most welcome, though some might need to bring their own cars.

On Saturday 7th October, we are going to the Thomas Hepburn Memorial Service at Heworth Church.  The service starts at 11.00am and those going with the banner will meet at Bowburn Community Centre at 9.45am.

On the same day, in the afternoon, we’re going to join the Houghton Feast.  The parade starts at 2.30pm and some may be meeting at Bowburn Community Centre at 1.30pm but that depends whether everyone who is going to this parade will just go straight on from Heworth.
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Then, a week later, on Sunday 14th October, we have been invited to join a parade and service in Wingate, to mark the 100th anniversary of the disaster at Wyngate Colliery (14th October 1906), when 26 men were killed.  Those going are invited to meet at Bowburn Community Centre at 9.00am.

Date of next Banner Group meeting

Please ask for details of the next ordinary meeting from the Secretary on 0191-377-1491.

Can you help us?

Did you carry the banner?  Did your father or grandfather?  (We’d like to compile as complete a list as possible of all those who did, and when, as well as record memories of those occasions.)

Did you work at the Colliery, or did your father or other relative?

Do you have any special memories of the Big Meeting when Bowburn Colliery was still working?

If so, please contact us via the contact page or ring the above number.  All other queries and information are welcome.