TENS of thousands of people flocked to the 135th annual Durham Miners’ Gala at the weekend.

Britain’s biggest annual celebration of the labour and trade union movement broke modern-day attendance records once again, attracting numbers in excess of last year’s estimated 150,000 turnout.

The gala followed its traditional format, with banners and bands marching from assembly points around the city and converging on a single route passing the County Hotel, where guests and speakers greeted them from the hotel balcony.

The guests included a delegation of former coalminers from Germany, who wore traditional garb complete with plumed hat.

They were led by Harald Hav from the western city of Moers, who was attending his first Durham Miners’ Gala. “It is fabulous, great!” he told the Morning Star.

A group of young women carried the banner of Barnsley Miners Wives Action Group in recognition of pioneering trade unionist Mother Jones, an Irishwoman who emigrated to the United States in the mid-1800s and became known as “the most dangerous woman in America.”

The band and banners began arriving at 8am and it was five hours later that the last marchers arrived. Many of the bands paused to play their party piece beneath the balcony.

Attendees then headed to Durham’s old racecourse for the legendary Big Meeting, featuring speeches by union general secretaries and MPs.

The march threw up some surprises. Chris Williamson, the MP being scurrilously attacked by his Labour colleagues over anti-semitism allegations, marched with the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign.

As the group reached the County Hotel, there was a storm of applause from guests on the balcony — including former president of train drivers’ union Aslef Tosh McDonald — and from the crowd.

The march was led by banners of Durham coalfield’s lodges.

Also represented were trade unions, Labour Party branches and constituency groups and the firefighters’ campaign for justice for victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.

Among the slogans and messages seen on the banners were “production for use not profit,” “need not greed,” “for peace and freedom” and, on a miners’ banner, “only those who have toiled in the bowels of the Earth know the true price of coal.”