MORE than 1,000 trade unionists, their friends and relatives gathered at the workers’ stately home Wortley Hall today for a big annual celebration of the labour movement.

Visitors at the South Yorkshire Festival enjoyed political meetings and an array of stalls run by trade unions, political and community organisations and campaign groups — including one for the Star.

Yorkshire and Humber TUC’s stall celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Trades Union Congress.

The hall’s front gardens were a sea of colour, with union and campaign stalls, flags, children’s entertainment and the huge balloon of public service union Unison.

Unite the union’s 10-piece brass band also played for the attendees.

The Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom held a meeting on the Tory government’s conspiracy to provoke the 1984-85 miners’ strike against pit closures, while the Fire Brigades Union brought along its mobile campaign against fire service cuts, showing two films.

Campaign groups at the event included Justice for the Shrewsbury 24 and the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign.

Yorkshire and Northern Unite regional secretary Karen Reay said: “The festival is a celebration the labour and trade union movement — in some ways a South Yorkshire People’s Gala — and Wortley Hall is absolutely unique.

“It deserves the support of the whole movement and is something we need to protect.”

Wortley Hall was built as a mansion for aristocrats from the blood and sweat of Yorkshire miners.

In the 1950s it was restored by South Yorkshire volunteer builders and gardeners.

The 26-acre site and hall is now owned and run as a co-operative  centre for labour and trade union activism and recreation.