Remembrance Sunday concert pays tribute to wartime miners and tunnellers
Tony Henderson has the details of a special performance in County Durham this weekend
Tunnelling to plant explosives under enemy lines was a hugely dangerous tactic employed by both sides during the First World War.
Many miners were recruited for their skills from areas like the North East for a form of warfare which was a product of the trenches stalemate.
The tunnellers will be remembered among thousands of miners from the region who served in the two world wars – including conscripted Bevin Boys – by a special concert in Durham this weekend.
The public event at 3pm on Remembrance Sunday (November 9), will be held in the newly restored Redhills, the home of the Durham Miners Association (DMA).
Titled By Our Life’s Ember – inspired by the poem Miners by war poet Wilfred Owen – the concert will feature the Durham Miners Association Brass Band and Lirica vocal ensemble performing in the listed building’s Pitman’s Parliament.
The concert will include performances of We Will Remember Them by Edward Elgar, Gresford – ‘The Miners’ Hymn’ – by Robert Saint, The Long Day Closes by Arthur Sullivan, music from The 49th Parallel by Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.
Tickets can be booked via the Redhills website.
By mid-1916, the British Army had around 25,000 trained tunnellers, mostly volunteers taken from coal mining communities. Almost twice that number of “attached infantry” supported them. The need for skilled men saw notices requesting volunteer tunnellers posted in collieries, mineral mines and quarries, including those in the North East.
Operating in cold, cramped conditions, miners worked in six- or 12-hour rotating shifts. Often the tunnels were dark, small and flooded with water.
Natural gases and gases given off as a result of explosions could ignite, poison or asphyxiate. A major problem gas for tunnellers was carbon monoxide, given off by all projectiles from shells to rifle bullets.
There was also the danger of tunnels from both sides meeting, resulting in hand-to-hand fighting.
One of the County Durham tunnellers was James Tobin. A corporal in the 184th Tunnelling Company Royal Engineers, Tobin served in key battles in the Somme, Arras and Ypres.
He was a miner at Cornsay Colliery and was one of 11 children. He married Elizabeth Ann Ryan in 1902 and they had five children.
James suffered wounds to the head and thigh but survived the war and returned to work as a miner until his retirement after 65 years of service. He died in 1958 at Tow Law, County Durham, aged 79.
Rob Guest of the Lirica vocal ensemble, based in Sedgefield, said: “It is a real honour to have been asked to perform at By Our Life’s Ember, in the newly restored Redhills. I can’t think of a more fitting tribute to the many miners from across the coalfield who served and died in war than this concert.
“It is set to be a deeply moving and unique remembrance experience for people of all ages.”