FOLK ask me why the Big Meeting is so special. My answer is always the same.

It’s our day, a day when we celebrate who we are, it’s a day when we fly the flag, our flag, the red flag. It’s the day we hold our banners high, it’s the day when we show our children what solidarity means.

I always think of our communities as families and I think it’s best explained by telling folk about my theory of the three worlds.

The first world was the world underground where men toiled in horrific conditions, where they spoke their own language, “pitmatic” they called it.

It’s a world that is so dangerous that at times you depend on your workmates, your Marras, for your very life.

It’s a world where you rely on your pony as the pony often hears the movement of coal or the girders before the human ear.

It’s a world where humour is often the thing that gets you through your shift and it’s a world that can change your life forever.

The second world is the world above ground, the world of women and children. Where women know the dangers their loved ones face.

It’s a world that sees what the true price of coal is. Women in mining communities have never had an easy life but just imagine, the buzzer goes, you know it means there’s been an accident, panic sets in, you hold your children tight as you worry: is it your man, your father, your brother, are they injured? Have they been killed?

So the women support each other, they give comfort to each other as they sit almost silently waiting, just waiting for news.

In that same world, there are the bairns. I was one of those bairns, I know what it’s like to watch a man suffer and die as a result of working down that big black hole, to see my dad breathless, to see the blue marks on his body where slithers of coal had managed to invade.

I’ve been there when a schoolmate is called out of class because their dad has been brought dead to the pit head. I’ve watched the widows cry and yet somehow get strength from their neighbours that helps them cope, eases their pain. We know solidarity.

Then there’s the third world, the world where we celebrate, where our families from both those two worlds come together, where we laugh together, where we dance at the joy of all of us being together, where we cement our relationship, where we show our solidarity, our pride where we are one big family.

That’s the Big Meeting. Durham day. It’s the highlight of our year, it’s the day we get up very early, it’s the day we are so excited because we know it’s our day and no-one can take it from us, no-one.

Thatcher tried, she thought that if she took away the pits, closed the mines, then we would crawl into shells never to be seen or heard of again.

How wrong she was, because we’ve grown stronger and Durham has grown wider now that other trade unions have joined “our day.” It’s become the workers’ day where we march through the city heads, held high and banners floating in the wind.

It’s the day when the sound of brass is heard throughout our villages as each colliery band along with those going to Durham stand at the old folk’s homes and play a tune or two for those retired miners and their loved ones, for those who can’t get to Durham.

In my village we meet at the miners’ welfare hall, the banner is lifted, and boom the big drum sounds. We all fall in line, whole families going for a picnic, going to hear the speeches, going to meet old friends and to make new friends too.

Then it’s everyone onto the bus and off we go, the excitement is obvious as we sing or chatter away. You see we all know what to expect on Durham day. The bus drops you as close as it can to where your band banner are to start their march, by now the air is electric the excitement is palpable, there are even tears, yes, tears of pride and of happiness as we bump into folk we’ve not seen since the last Big Meeting.

We are clapped through the streets by thousands of folk who stand at the roadside, they cheer as we walk by, and there’s the odd tear there as well, again tears of pride.

We stop outside the County Hotel where union leaders, MPs and speakers gather to wave at the excited crowd.

On to the racecourse where our march comes to a halt, you can now hear the music from the fair that sets up every year, where the stalls are, that’s where we buy our kiss-me-quick hats, our candy floss, ice cream.

Our banner is rested against the fence that surrounds the racecourse, the band lays their instruments on the ground in front of the banner, and then we all wander off to visit the stalls, to check out the banners or simply to sit and watch and listen as the bands and banners arrive. Bairns never get lost at the Big Meeting because we all know our banner so we make our way there and just sit, parents know where to find us if we wander, they just head for the banner.

Then there are the speakers. So many speeches I’ve heard on Durham day — and a few come to mind. Neil Kinnock who spoke of his support for us and our communities, the man who went on to betray us, Laura Pidcock’s speech just a few years ago, what a strong woman.

Matt Wrack as he spoke of how the government was trying to blame the firefighters for the loss of life in the Grenfell fire, his voice cracked as he spoke of the heroism, Jeremy Corbyn, Tony Benn, Dennis Skinner — oh man! Those people taught me so much about politics you could say that Durham day was my yearly lesson in socialism.

I made mention of Thatcher, the woman I hated in 1984 and the woman I hate even more today. She killed our villages, and split up families as so many had to move away for work — but as I always say, she didn’t kill our spirit. The saying “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” comes to mind, because that’s exactly what happened to us mining folk.

I think now I must speak a little more about the women, the strong women of our communities, the women who stood side by side with their men as they fought the state, as Thatcher tried to kill our spirit.

Those women, and I mean all mining women not simply those who worked in the support groups, many had never been interested in politics. Oh, how they grew that year. Making meals, putting up parcels, writing, acting, being interviewed, attending or even organising rallies.

Those women stood side by side with their men on picket lines where many were brutalised both mentally and physically.

Here we are 40 years later and those women are still out there organising, flying the flag not simply on women’s issues but on whole world matters whether it be campaigning for peace, fighting for fair wages and conditions, organising day schools, publishing poetry or mentoring younger women, the next generation to recognise together we can do great things.

We held an amazing rally in Durham earlier this year. We are working with a number of museums across the country. We’ve had pop-up shops in a number of ex-mining areas where we’ve held free sessions on a number of topics.

There’s a seminar on poverty being planned as well as another big event which is to be held in Redhills next March to commemorate the end of that epic struggle of 1984-85.

Yes, Women Against Pit Closures is alive and kicking.