THE banner draped from the famous balcony of the County Hotel for the Durham Miners’ Gala this year told us “the past we inherit, the future we build.”

It’s food for thought as the banners march past, decorated with the faces not just of the nationally renowned leaders of our movement, but local ones too. This is no cult of personality though; what’s remembered, what’s inherited, are deeds.

Held aloft in celebration of what working-class solidarity has achieved in victory and defeat, but now more than ever, a message to anyone with a heartbeat that we are still here.

A few months earlier the Reform-run local council had cut its funding for the local Durham Pride, but the Durham Miners’ Association and trade unions stepped in to help save it. It’s called solidarity.

It wasn’t the performative act some of the populist far right would have you believe, nor is it some sign that trade unions have abandoned the working class, quite the opposite.

When the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners banner was carried along the street, some of the chronically online might scoff, but not those who remember the solidarity that organisation delivered in the great strike, and certainly not Mike Jackson, who along with Mark Ashton helped get it off the ground.

The story was made into a film, Pride, and its release 12 years ago led to the banner making something of a comeback at the Big Meeting. As he readied himself for a barnstorming speech at the raceground, Mike told the Star: “You know, there’s that awful bourgeois kind of model of art, being something that’s for refined people. That’s bollocks. That’s not art. That’s bullshit.

“Art is a movie like Pride. It’s brought our story to the world in a way that engages with people.

“And that movie has had a profound political impact on the LGBT community and within the labour movement and in the world at large.”

He’s not wrong, I’ve seen first-hand the inspirational impact it had on my daughter, I tell him, but what I hadn’t reckoned on was the impact around the world. My mistake; class knows no borders after all.

“Well, an interesting thing, when the movie, when it was first given an airing, it was at the Cannes Film Festival.

“And the writer, Stephen Barry, phoned me up and he said, well, we’ve had the screening in Cannes.

“He said the press call gives us a five-minute standing ovation.

“I said they never give anybody a standing ovation.

“And he said, but the best bit was in the evening when it was shown to the French public.

“That got about an eight-minute standing ovation.

“But the thing that really shocked Pathe and himself was the most voluble contingent in that audience was the French schoolkids.

“They went mad for it.

“Now, ostensibly this is a movie about trade unionists, Welsh people and queers.

“You know, as the director of Pride said, you know, if I wanted to make a lot of money, I’d make movies about big fat lizards, they sell well.

“But Welsh people, when it’s raining, queer people and trade unions?”

“Teenagers who love that movie more than anybody, it completely took us all by surprise. It’s just amazing.”

Is it encouraging to see a new generation inspired like that? Silly question.

“Absolutely. I mean, because my God, don’t we need encouragement at the moment? I’m privileged to get to meet a lot of people, including those young people. They inspire me, they give me hope. They’ve taken the torch and they’ve run with it, which is fantastic.”

Making clear where that torch must be carried and why, he continued: “What we need to do now is build the trade union movement again.

“There is a slight increase in trade union membership, which is exciting, but we need to at least double it.

“If we haven’t got governments that are truly batting for us and defending and fighting for our interests, and by our, I mean, working-class interests, then we’ve got the trade unions.

“It’s so important to rebuild that trade union movement and have good, strong trade union leaders that will stand up against corporate capitalism.

“You can’t be a wimp and fight corporate capitalism, it doesn’t work like that.

“You need people like Eddie Dempsey who will just not take any shit and stand up to them.”

Taking a swipe at those who would believe “there’s an LGBT community over there living on a little class-free bubble cloud, and there are, for example, mining communities over here,” he couldn’t be clearer.

“That’s bollocks. The people who put money in our buckets when LGSM was campaigning for the miners in 1984-85 during the strike, we were stood outside gay pubs and clubs.

“We were outside because the Tory gay owners of pubs and clubs wouldn’t let us collect inside.

“They’d be putting the money in our buckets and saying, ‘My dad’s a miner. My brother’s a miner. My granddad was a miner. My uncle’s a miner.’

“The majority of LGBT people, ipso facto, are working class, but, as is the case in society at large, generally the working classes are ignored, invisibilised, not listened to, and it’s the middle-class voices that get heard.

“That’s what’s so great about the Durham Miners’ Gala, because that completely turns upside down and it’s working-class people getting their voice and showing their unity and pride and showing the wonderful plurality of who we are.

“We are black, we are brown, we are white, we are male, we are female, we are everything.

“And we stand together.”

Sounds like a plan.