Newly rediscovered footage of a benefit concert held for striking miners has been used in a student project. Media students at New College Durham edited a film of the concert – which had never been released before – that had been lying around in the director’s garage for over 30 years.
The footage had been filmed at the Concert for Heroes, which took place at the Royal Albert Hall in 1986. The concert featured acts such as Paul Weller, Lindisfarne, the Flying Pickets and Tom Robinson.
The proceeds from the concert were used to relieve the hardships of people involved in the year-long Miners’ Strike, which lasted from March 1984 to March 1985. The dispute involved many miners from County Durham and the north east.
The students’ project combines footage from the Concert for Heroes with clips of people from Easington Colliery talking about their experiences of the Miners’ Strike.
Stuart Drummond, who lectures in media at New College Durham, said, “This project has been one of the most exciting and ambitious I’ve been involved in as a media lecturer, and it has presented both myself and the students with a fantastic opportunity to engage with the local area and its history as well as enabling them to develop professional filmmaking and editing skills.”
The project was made possible by north east musician Neil Griffin. Mr Griffin, who performed at the Concert for Heroes with his band The Fabulous Wildon Brothers, one day discovered that director Ian Krause still had the original footage in his possession.
Mr Griffin said, “I was amazed to find that Ian still had the original tapes from all those years ago and it’s really exciting that people will now be able to see it after 30 years.”
“To play at the Albert Hall, which is such an iconic and symbolic venue, was certainly the pinnacle of my musical adventures and to be able to see the footage after such a long time is really exciting.”
