It is 20 years since the miners took their last great stand against pit closures. Their year-long battle ended in defeat and within a decade all but one of the North-East's mines were gone. Beverley Addy looks at how the mining communities have fared since. ***********
Banners are paraded at the Durham Miners' Gala.
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Measuring how mining communities have recovered since the pit closures that struck in the decade following the 1984-85 miners' strike is a subjective and debate-provoking matter. Employment figures can be manipulated. Housing prices don't seem to reflect the rundown state of those homes that never come on the market. And who can fill a measuring jug with community spirit and quality of life to estimate whether that is half full or half empty? Many feel that light is starting to show at the end of the tunnel. Mining folk have always been seen as a resilient bunch. Even so, it's been a long time in coming. For the past 20 years, Stewart Watkins, executive director of County Durham's development company has been working at helping communities across his county - typical of the mining areas in the North-East - get back on their feet. He said: "If we talk in terms of East Durham area, at one stage in the late 80s and early 90s there were 16,000 mining jobs. All those went. "Durham coalfield employed 150,000 people in the early 50s. That's completely gone." Durham County Council, behind the development company, secured a new industrial estate at Seaham Grange and "enterprise zone" status for the county which attracted further investment for another major industrial estate at Peterlee. "The council also took steps to put relatively small industrial estates throughout the county, such as the small factory units at Blackhall Colliery, Wingate and Station Town. "Those came with Rural Development Commission funding, and were where local people could start their own businesses," said Mr Watkins. In the mid-to-late 80s, unemployment in County Durham peaked at 20pc. Now the county average matches the national average - according to "official" figures. Mr Watkins points out, however, that there are still pockets where it is much higher. "It varies quite dramatically across the county. There are parts of East Durham, South-West Durham and North-West Durham, like Consett, Stanley, Crook and Bishop Auckland, where there are quite sharp peaks, reaching five, six and seven per cent on the official figures and with those people who don't appear on the official figures it could be as high as 10pc still. "But the average figure does indicate good news, because for years and years the county was always two or three per cent behind the national average and no matter what we did we couldn't get down to the national average." House prices are deemed another indicator of an area's prosperity. While a detached three-bedroom home in Durham City will set you back around £500,000 today, those pockets of deprivation will bring down the average and in some parts, the quality of housing is the big issue. But there is good news on the horizon with house builders now seeing the pit villages as attractive prospects and small new housing estates bringing in new buyers and improve the quality of the housing stock. In many areas the new homes go for double the price of the older rundown properties, meaning newcomers will look first at the modern alternatives. But where new estates have been in place for a few years the knock-on effect is a hike in the price of the pit terraces and cottages. In areas like Fishburn, Sedgefield and Trimdon house prices are on the up - former council-owned three-bed semi's are now fetching £70,000-plus. Mr Watkins points to Seaham as a good example of a former pit town on the up. There were three pits there, providing 10,000 jobs. By 1992, that work had gone. "Ten years ago, it was a town subject to a great deal of industrial dereliction. But if you go there today you will see that the whole harbour front has been completely redeveloped and there are two new industrial estates at Dawdon and Foxcover under development. "The pension service has just put in its big call centre. "The harbour company is doing much better and there's the Seaham Grange Industrial Estate that has been there for some time now and is doing very well with a lot of international companies. "The jewel in the crown is Seaham Hall Hotel. It may seem like an unlikely setting but it has proved to be successful. "Seaham's success may be to do with the amount of public money focused on it, and Seaham has had a great deal of attention. "Perhaps if you put the same amount of money into places such as Blackhall for example, then it would have had the same effect but you have to ask if that would have been the right place to put that investment. "There are some extreme cases of deprivation, but they are getting fewer. "There cannot be much doubt that when the pits were closing along with the Consett steel works and Shildon wagon works there was migration out of the area as people looked for job opportunities, but it is an indicator of how things have changed as the county now has a pretty stable population of around half a million people." But happiness cannot always be measured by the pound in your pocket or the price tag on your home. And a sense of belonging is being established among a new generation living in the pit villages from a source that one might have imagined would have engendered nothing but bitterness and despair. The once "defunct" union banners that were put away when the pits closed and brought out perhaps once a year for the Durham Miners' Gala, have proven once again to be an icon that the community can rally round. Dr Carol Stephenson, with Northumbria University colleagues Dave Wray, a former miner, and Prof Mary Mellor, have been studying the "emotional" recovery of the pit villages with surprising findings. "What we noticed is that the Durham Miners' Gala hasn't died, rather it is regenerating itself. More people are going now than there were 10 years ago. "New banners are being commissioned across the coalfields and this is unprecedented and unexpected. The banners are representative of the communities and seem to be as fundamental to the regeneration as anything. They give a sense of identity and pride." In one former pit village, the New Herrington Banner Partnership was recently formed to resurrect the colliery banner even though it was 10 years since the pit closed and the colliery site has all but disappeared under landscaping to create a country park. It raised £4,000 but much more than that it sparked a whole new sense of community. People came together, organised meetings, organised fund-raising, learned new skills and began talking about what else the community needed. "They brought the old banner out and it was ripped to shreds. When that happened the community died. There was nothing for them to take to the gala that symbolised their unity. This new banner is treated with reverence. It is an icon. The banner is needed to remind people that they have this very honourable heritage. "In some areas at least there's an attempt at emotional regeneration. They are redeveloping a pride in the community. It is not all bad news. The banner is still deeply evocative and it is something that people can rally around. "Ten years ago there was not the same hoo-ha about the anniversary that there has been this time. Initially the communities themselves were still so bruised. "Twenty years on it strikes me that there has been a period of mourning. Now the mining communities have recovered enough to reflect and say what we have wasn't ideal but we had a sense of community that was very important and affected our quality of life. "Even if we can't make the employment more secure what we can do is try to rebuild our community." Page 2: Events to mark 20th anniversary | 
