AN UNEXPECTED “guest” arrived at Durham Miners’ Gala on Saturday — the rotting remains of Margaret Thatcher in a coffin.

And the coffin will be wheeled out — literally, it is on wheels — at future galas as a reminder of the lasting hatred felt towards the woman responsible for the destruction of Britain’s deep-mined coal industry.

The coffin was made by ex-miner Mick Woods, who worked at South Yorkshire’s Manvers Main colliery which was shut by the Tories in 1988. Later he worked at Kellingley in Yorkshire, Britain’s last operating pit.