New album for Ellington and Esh Colliery brass bands

Jan 30 2010 by David Black, The Journal

POTENT symbols of Britain’s coal mining industry, they provided the stirring soundtrack as pitmen returned to work after one of the most bitter industrial conflicts in history.

Colliery brass bands were the musical standard-bearers as beaten but unbowed miners trudged back to their pitheads at the end of the year-long strike in March 1985.

Here in the North East the pits have long since disappeared but the coalfield music tradition continues – and is being celebrated with the release of a new CD next month.

The album – The Music Lives On Now The Mines Have Gone – which is released by Universal Records on March 1, features 15 tracks by Britain’s best colliery bands.

Two of them are from the North East, the Northumbrian Water Ellington Colliery Band and County Durham’s Bearpark and Esh Colliery Band.

The CD’s release is timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the miners’ return to work on March 3 1985, following the bitterly divisive strike.

Some of the bands featured on it played the miners back to the pitheads on the official return day, an event which became known as the Loyalty Parade. The Ellington Colliery Band’s contribution is a version of Rossini’s La Danza, taken from a CD released in 2005. The Bearpark and Esh Band’s track is Songs Of The Tyne, which featured on its 2003 collection Colliery Connections.