Night The Music Went Round And Round (14 January 1977)

I apologise for the non-appearance of my usual odds and ends in last week’s Gazette.  You see, I went to another part of the country for Christmas, thinking the paper would miss a week’s publication at Christmas, as it had done for several years past.  But it did not miss, and I returned from holiday too late to research and write anything.

I am cross with myself about this, because I hadn’t missed an issue in all the exactly-four years since the series began, though I do remember that when it began I did not think more than six months would pass before I dried up.

On my way home from holiday I had to contend with fog right from Aborfield, near Reading, to this side of High Wycombe.  Fortunately, it was daytime.  It would have been impossible for me at night.

It reminded me of an experience the Bletchley Town Band had in November, 1948, when they competed in the Reading Brass Band Festival.   Conducted by Mr Frank Brookes, they won not only the cash and challenge shield for their own section, but also the 100-guinea vase for the highest-scoring band in any section, with 92 marks out of 100.  A total of 34 bands entered.

The band with their cock-a-hoop supporters left Reading in two coaches in thick fog shortly after 10pm.  One of the coaches, whose passengers included chairman, J Green, and bandmaster, Bill Axby, arrived at Bletchley with the trophies at about midnight, which was good going in the conditions.

The other coach, however, did not get back until 9 o’clock next morning.  This party included the majority of the bandsmen and they were in such high spirits with their festival success that for quite some time they did not notice what was going on in the outer darkness.  The driver, however, was soon in trouble and eventually was hopelessly lost.

It seems that his first diversion – or divertimento, as you could call it in a musical context – occurred when he inadvertently made a detour via Slough.  The passengers did not notice this, but after about an hour they began to take notice and discovered that they were then on the outskirts of Guildford.  From that point the music just went round and around without coming out anywhere useful.

“We touched Guildford twice, Farnham, Aldershot and I think Petersfield as well,” one passenger told me next day.

“At 3am we were at Knightsbridge.  There we told a policeman we refused to go any further in that fog, but he led us to Hyde Park and directed us along the Edgware Road.

“By 5am we were at Burnt Oak.  While everybody tried to sleep in the cold bus, the fog gradually became less dense. Then the day dawned and we finally reached home between 11 and 12 hours after beginning the journey.”

While on the subject of weather, I must say I was amused by an item in the Gazette’s Christmas issue.  As a sort of general caption to a set of snow pictures, someone wrote that he (or she) had been told to do 150 words about snow.  He made a brave and witty attempt, although he managed only 128 words.  But his last sentence about snow began:  “It performs no useful function at all . . .”

I don’t know whether that was intended as a further joke, but I dare say it raised many other eyebrows, besides my own.  For the fact is that a large part of the world could not very well get on without an annual covering of snow.

In countries where winters are severe, such as Canada, Norway and Russia, the presence of the “snow blanket” throughout the winter protects the sleeping vegetation beneath from cold that would be fatal to it.  Then when the spring comes, the melting snow is equally useful in supplying moisture at exactly the right time for the awakening seeds and bulbs.  And it supplies it far more effectively and gently than heavy rainfall, which often runs off into the nearest getaway without penetrating the soil very much at all.

The effect in these islands is similar, though not so obvious.  I have good cause to remember the snowfalls which occurred here towards the back end of February, 1949.  For a good many evenings in succession I had to trudge through snow and slush in Northampton.  Then the snow began to go and in a mere ten days from its beginning all the gardens were ablaze with the finest displays of crocuses I ever saw, though there had been no sign of them before.

What is good for bulbs is good for other growth as well.  So next time you are put to a little temporary inconvenience by the well-named snow blanket, remember that it is performing one of the most useful of functions – that of helping to fill your belly later on – and that you should be welcoming it whenever the thermometer really dives.