'The empowerment of women from the miners' strike is huge' says Chesterfield composer behind premiere of A Northern Requiem at town's iconic Crooked Spire Church

Jonathan Francis, artistic director at Chesterfield Studios, has created The Northern Requiem which will be delivered by an esteemed brass band, an internationally renowned musician, a mezzo-soprano who has sung in concert halls nationwide and a homegrown choir on October 12.

The Northern Requiem shines a light on the communities who were robbed of their livelihoods when the pits were closed. Jonathan said: “There was never any consideration as to what the people who worked there would do when everything changed. It was not just about the jobs – it was the fact that everything revolved around the pit.

“The idea of a requiem is that you’re praying for the soul of the departed. The ultimate goal of such things, if you’re of a Catholic bent, is the soul’s triumph over death. That’s how it works in the context of mining – everything died 40 years ago but it’s now looking hopefully to the future that things may get better.

"The empowerment of women from the miners’ strike is huge – women who went on to realise there is a world outside and go to college, become councillors and MPs.”

Jonathan’s composition was inspired by a song called Women of the Working Class, written by Mal Finch of the Winster folk band Flamin Nerve. He said: “It became the anthem of women against pit closures and has been taken by women all over the world when they are in need of an anthem to unite behind.

"I found it on a cassette in a drawer when I was about eight or nine in the late 80s, stuck it on and it’s been in my mind ever since being a child.

“My great-grandfather was a miner at Creswell. My grandad used to service miners’ lamps from Clay Cross.

"I remember that we had relatives in Nottingham and we’d drive through Ripley on the A610 and see all the slag heaps and mine workings and gradually over the years those disappeared.

"People make documentaries about the miners but there is no memorial. You drive past an old colliery and there is a little plaque and half an old winding wheel but kids don’t know what that is, what that means, they’ve no understanding as if it’s all just a bit of an old dirty mess that’s been forgotten about.

"There has been a miners’ strike exhibition from the Derbyshire Unemployed Workers Centre doing the rounds. They’ve been talking to schools and I’ve been fascinated to learn that kids really don’t know much about what their grandfathers used to do and how everything was built up around the mines.”

A Northern Requiem is a concert of music, mostly written by Jonathan, with the words of poets and the text from the Requiem Mass.

Jonathan is musical director of Rose Choir who will be performing alongside Harlequin Brass led by conductor Jack Wagstaff, internationally renowned violinist Morven Bryce who lives in Chesterfield and soloist Louise Collett who has sung at many concerts throughout the country and is vocal coach for Rose Choir.

A banner will be paraded through the church by ex-miners including John Burrows, a full-time official of the National Union of Mineworkers at the time of the strike, during a piece that Jonathan has composed about the march back to work. In the concert programme, John says: “Proud, solid, and still fighting, we proudly paraded back to the pit as the strike ended. I was one of them.”

Proceeds from the sell-out concert will go towards a £200,000 appeal to buy a redundant church building next door to Chesterfield Studios on Rose Hill, for use as a community arts centre.

Jonathan said: “I want to use this concert to test the water and see how it goes, then develop it and launch a project where we can work with some of the old mining communities to get more ex-miners involved and have them singing.”

*A camera crew from Channel 4 News are due to visit Chesterfield this Thursday (October 3) for a feature on the miners’ strike and will film several of the singers and musicians who are contributing to A Northern Requiem.