I HAD a memorable day at Durham Miners’ Gala the Saturday before last: stirring brass bands, beautiful banners, great conversations and wonderful company. And after the march there was a storming set from the inspirational Joe Solo on the main stage, his final song The Last Miner a declaration of intent to keep the Gala tradition going into the future, backed by a choir of the children whose generation will be tasked with doing it. And I had the honour of meeting the late, great Star arts editor Cliff Cocker’s widow Mary. 

Then came a moving and fiery speech from the Palestinian ambassador, followed by one from Jeremy Corbyn, and at the end I danced with the Kurds of Rojava to a band playing their traditional music. 

I’ve always wondered why their struggle for independence from the strictures of Sykes/Picot-drawn nation state maps has been ignored by the left, especially given the unique secular-feminist society they are building in Rojava. It’s not ignored by me. Big, brilliant day. And the night before I did a lovely gig with Jess Silk for the teachers’ union NEU. Cheers to one and all!

And then came last week’s announcement that there is FINALLY going to be an inquiry into the disgusting police brutality and subsequent media manipulation at the miners’ demonstration at Orgreave coking plant during the great strike FORTY YEARS ago. Congratulations to the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign who fought so long and so hard. 

The fact that it will be modelled on the Hillsborough inquiry, chaired independently and have the power to compel witnesses is also welcome. Because of the response of Thatcher’s government, police and media at the time the two events have always been inextricably linked in my mind, as has Wapping — summed up in the penultimate verse of my miners’ strike poem Never Forget:

After Orgreave came Wapping, then Hillsborough.
With the press and police on her side 
Thatcher smiled as the printers were beaten 
And those ninety-six* football fans died
She had a quite brazen agenda
Summed up perfectly well when she said 
That there’s “no such thing as a society”.
Don’t blame us for being glad that she’s dead.

*now ninety-seven, sadly.

The irony will not be lost on everyone that this decision has been made by a government currently treating peaceful Palestine protesters in the same kind of way the Tories treated the miners.

And there should be an enquiry into Wapping too. I’ll never forget what I saw there.

Ozzy Osbourne’s dead.

Move over Bela Lugosi.

A life very, very well lived. And a special moment for me.

I learned violin and recorder at primary school but in rock ’n’ roll terms I started off as a bassist. I got my first bass guitar when I was 12 and the very first riff I learned was Iron Man. It has stood me in very, very good stead.

In the last 45 years I have played that riff on bass, violin, viola, mandolin, mandola, recorder, crumhorn, cornamuse, rauschpfeife, sausage bassoon, shawm and fck knows what else. Mostly at sound checks, but in all kinds of situations and all kinds of places, and it has always been met with instant recognition and laughter in direct proportion to the ridiculousness of the instrument I played it on.

And I used it for my poem The Iron Men of Rap, backed by The Men They Couldn’t Hang.

That’s a legacy and a half.

RIP Ozzy.

And finally, congrats to the Lionesses: that was some comeback! Great game, and a pleasure to see women’s football blossoming on the pitch and in the stands. About time.

I have always needed two months off every summer to recharge my football batteries — don’t do friendlies, took no interest whatsoever in the world club thing — but I have watched the Lionesses’ progress, and it’s been really enjoyable. Shame about the negativity in some quarters, and as ever the racists can go to hell. Looking forward to tomorrow and a second trophy!