“WE ARE still here” was the motto emblazoned on the banners of the Big Meeting on Saturday — and local children delivered that message of the endurance of working-class pride in their communities at the annual cathedral service.

New banners from the Bearpark and Thornley communities and for the Tursdale mechanics were dedicated by Bishop of Jarrow the Right Rev Sarah Clark, the acting bishop of Durham.

The most class-conscious miners’ service in years heard Middlesborough MP Andy McDonald and the Rev Canon Professor David Wilkinson stress Jesus’s focus on the working poor and the dignity of labour.

The congregation joined a pledge led by the cathedral’s dean promising to work for “peace, the welfare of the poor and a just future for all.”

And children from the Sacriston Youth performed a poem they had written commissioned by the Redhills charity and the Durham Miners’ Association detailing the expropriation of surplus labour in the coalfields.

“Our seams made you rich, but you left us with nowt,” one line ran; another stressed working-class agency: “We honour the graft of the past but we’re writing our future, carving out space for the dreamers and doers. With hope in our hands, not left in the rulers, we’re forging new paths…”

An emotional congregation ended the service belting out Jerusalem, with its theme of transforming England into a heavenly city, before clapping out the banners to tunes played by the Durham Miners’ Association band, the Thurcroft Welfare Band and the Kippax band.