SCOTTISH youth activists on a specially chartered bus from Motherwell left half an hour after my train from Glasgow Central — but they still managed to arrive at the Durham Miners’ Gala half an hour ahead of me.

While trade unionists once feared for the future of the Big Meeting in the post-mining era, the crowd now looks more youthful each year.

Some are energised Labour Party joiners and union members who speak of “Fomo” — fear of missing out — if they don’t make the annual pilgrimage.

“Meeting comrades and locals from all parts of the struggle, sharing experiences always makes the gala what it is,” says Grant Aitken, who represents Scotland on Labour’s National Policy Forum.

Others, mainly from north-east England, may have no movement experience to speak of. But they come in droves nonetheless — because of family who worked in the mines and joined the 1984 miners’ strike, or excited by the chance to hear Jeremy Corbyn speak, or simply to have a bloody good time.

And if you arrive at Durham having no idea of the power of solidarity, that won’t last.

Many Labour rightwingers just don’t get this. When Len McCluskey blasted Tom Watson for his attacks on Jennie Formby while she is undergoing chemo, former Scottish first minister Jack McConnell — now the noble Baron McConnell of Glenscorrodale — sneered at him for “resorting to vulgarity.”

But McConnell’s the past. Scottish Young Labour chair Enas Magzoub, there for the first time, described it as “like Glastonbury, but for socialists.” I’ll raise my can of Lidl pre-mixed gin and tonic to that.