AS the first Big Meeting since before the pandemic approaches, we ask the big questions: is it "gay-la" or "gar-la", and have you ever been wowed by a wowee?
It seemed appropriate to ask the first question on Wednesday at the opening of the new exhibition at the Mining Art Gallery in Bishop Auckland. The exhibition, called Unity is Strength, celebrates 150 years of the Durham Miners’ Gala and captures the colour and the big hearted chaos of the great day.
Racecourse at Durham by an unknown artist around 1880, the earliest known painting of the gala. Picture: Durham Miners’ Association. Photography by The House of Hues
The first mass miners’ rally was held in Wharton Park on August 12, 1871, and the exhibition features the first known picture of a gala, which dates from around 1880. The painting is unfinished and is by an unknown artist. It gives a misty, impressionist picture of the gathering on the Racecourse which is dominated by billowing banners.
The Years of Victory by John Bird. Picture: Durham Miners’ Association. Photography by The House of Hues
Almost at the other end of the scale is the photo-realism of John William Bird’s painting from 1947 which is entitled The Years of Victory – it shows the first gala following the nationalisation of the coal industry after the Second World War. It is beautifully realistic as it seems to show in detail the weary but happy gala-goers beginning to wend their way home over Framwellgate Bridge beneath the castle: a small boy has hurt his tooth after biting on a superhard toffee apple while is father in the bottom left is clearly a little squiffy after a day drinking in the spirit of the coalfield communities.
Ross Forbes, left, and Gillian Wales and Dr Bob McManners in front of a Durham Miners' Association mural at the new exhibition
The opening of the exhibition also offered the chance to address the really big question of the moment: is it pronounced “gay-la” or “gar-la”?
Among those whose opinions we canvassed, Ross Forbes, director of the Durham Miners’ Association, thought there might be a geographical divide around Chester-le-Street, with those to the north saying “gar-la” and those to the south “gay-la”.
“But there’s no hard and fast rule,” he added.
Gillian Wales, who has studied mining art for many years and formed the Gemini Collection on which the exhibition is based with Dr Bob McManners, proved that the rule is neither hard nor fast.
“In Spennymoor, we had a ‘gay-la’ in Jubilee Park,” she said, “and then we went off to the Durham miners’ ‘gar-la’.”
On Tuesday, Dr Fiona Hill, the White House advisor who testified against Donald Trump, returned to her old school of Bishop Barrington in Bishop Auckland. She presented an assembly, and then the pupils quizzed her. One asked what traditional English tastes she misses now that she lives in the US.
“I always think of my dad’s Yorkshire Puddings,” she replied. “He always said it was all in the wrist action.”
When her mother was in hospital, her late father made Yorkshire Puddings for every meal. “We had them with sausages in them, with soup and then with Tate & Lyle’s Golden Syrup in them, which my gran called ‘wowees’.”
Have you ever had a wowee? Were they a south Durham speciality? Did you call them “wowees”? And what other unusual combinations did your family make with a Yorkshire Pudding?
And do you say "gay-la" or "gar-la" and why?
READ MORE: THE OPENING OF THE NEW MINING ART EXHIBITION
READ MORE: WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR RETURNS TO HER OLD SCHOOL IN BISHOP AUCKLAND
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