"Right..Lenin, Keir Hardie, James Connolly, AJ Cook, and you George on t'banner, I think that'll Scotch the 'Lurch towards Reformism' Rumours"

Thanks to my old pal Dr. Don Watson for sending on this little gem to the "Unrepentant Communist" site.

"Follonsby Lodge of the Durham Miners Association, at Wardley near Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, was one of only three in the British coalfield to feature Lenin on its banner.It was also the only one to include the Irish revolutionary James Connolly, executed after theEaster Rising. The other figures on it are Keir Hardie, 1920's miners' leader AJ Cook, and FollonsbyLodge Secretary George Harvey. A syndicalist before 1917, Harvey was a founder member of the Communist Party who later became a Labour Councillor. In 1935 he led a long and successful strike against victimisation. In 1936 his Lodge gave much practical support to local men taking part in theHunger March to London to protest against joblessness and the treatment of the unemployed. After the second world war when the British coal industry was nationalised, Lenin and Connolly were replaced on the banner by images of Durham Miners Association officials." (picture from W.A. Moyes, 'The BannerBook', Frank Graham, Newcastle-on-Tyne 1974)