Filmmaker Ken Loach speaks at memorial service in Heworth

The acclaimed filmmaker was giving a keynote address at the Thomas Hepburn Memorial Service at St Mary’s Church, Heworth today (Saturday, October 14). 

In a wide-ranging speech, during which he decried the "political assassination" of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, the focus was on Thomas Hepburn who spent his life working to improve the lives of miners and their families.

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Hepburn founded the Colliers United of Durham and Northumberland in 1825. He is buried in the churchyard at St Mary’s.

Mr Loach said: "What do we (activists)do when we leave this church? Can we find that unity in the short term?

"I think that is difficult because we know the elections are coming. We know some activists will remain in the Labour Party and fight, and some have started parties individually - good comrades all of them."

"We know there are campaigns against homelessness, against poverty, and for the climate - for all the major issues that concern us.

"I can't see we'll find the unity to start the transformation of society that Hepburn and those who went before him and those who are with us now." 

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But, Mr Loach added: "I think we can unite on principles. We know the principles that we need, we know the core ideas that we stand for. Let's sign up to those. Nobody has to leave their party nobody has to leave their campaign. - lets agree on that."

Speaking to The Northern Echo following a wreath-laying ceremony at the grave of Thomas Hepburn, Mr Loach said:  "If we stick together we can always win because the working class is the strongest element of society. There is the power there, but we need unity. 

"And now for activist - and Hepburn was an activist - he wanted organisation and wanted to be serious in how we organise. 

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"And I think the great need now for the Left - the inheritors of Thomas Hepburn to unite around our principles."

Those principles, said Mr Loach, are "common ownership, health service without profiteers without private companies, real housing (back to council housing), a green agenda and really sustainable economy where everyone gets the full fruits of their labour, as the old Labor party used to say".

Mr Loach’s latest film is set in a former Durham mining community. The Old Oak was filmed in Murton and other locations in the North East, including at the Durham Miners Gala. 

 MP for Easington Grahame Morris will gave a reading at the service, as did Mayor of Gateshead Cllr Eileen McMaster. Following the service, wreaths were laid at Thomas Hepburn’s grave.

The Durham Miners Association Brass Band played during the service, before performing Gresford, the miners’ hymn, at the graveside.

Alan Mardghum, Secretary of the Durham Miners Association (DMA), said: “We were proud and delighted that Ken Loach was able to join us for this year’s service. We thank him and everyone else who is took part. 

“It is vitally important that we keep our history alive and that we remember people such as Thomas Hepburn.

Thomas Hepburn was born in Pelton in 1795 and began his working life at Urpeth Colliery at the age of eight following the death of his father in a mining accident.

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He went on to work at Lamb’s Colliery in Fatfield, Jarrow Colliery, then in 1822 at Hetton Colliery. The same year, he became a Primitive Methodist and a lay preacher. At Hetton, he founded the first miners’ union and became its leader.

In 1831, the union led a successful strike, winning a reduction in the working day from 18 to 12 hours – for children under the age of 12. Following this, the colliery owners organised to destroy the union and Hepburn and other leaders were blacklisted.

Hepburn remained an active Chartist throughout his life, and dedicated himself to working-class education. He died in December 1864 at the age of 69. His portrait features on several Durham Miners’ Association (DMA) lodge banners.