Thursday 9 July 2015

Royal Gala Performance

I am pleased to see that the descendants of the Durham miners are thriving and multiplying ahead of this Saturday's Gala.

I look forward to hearing His Majesty King George VII speak from the platform in the middle of the present century. As ever, the advertisement underneath the podium will read, "Buy The Morning Star".

On present form, that newspaper will be going strong long after the BBC has gone bust, the Daily Mail has gone online-only, and The Sun has gone the way of all other pre-Internet soft porn.

Most people in this country have never heard of the Gala, and it has long been strapped for cash, although somehow it never quite goes under.

Yet it is rich in history, its colourful appearance would be highly telegenic, it is the largest trade union event in the world, and it is a good 10 times larger than all of the same season's Orange and kindred parades put together.

Those parades are heavily covered by the national media, and can hardly be said to express a culture similar to their own.

Durham is on the East Coast Main Line, but the London media find it easier to cover the remotest corners of the United States. Although not, it must be said, of any other country.

Whereas many other countries send people to the Durham Miners' Gala. Perhaps that is the problem? It is far too cosmopolitan for the nylon media, living as they do in a London that they regard as a suburb of New York.

And yes, before anyone comes over all QI, I know. But I am going to keep going with this one.

For, on Saturday, we shall experience something that is anything but synthetic.

No comments:

Post a Comment