The Sound Of Brass (12 March 1976)

Having been brought up with the sound of the Black Dyke Mills Band in one ear and that of the Brighouse and Rastrick Band in the other, so to speak, I have been very pleased to note the resurgence of brass banding in Milton Keynes, for there is nothing like a brass band for bringing music out into the open air, unless it be a military band.

I hope the movement has come to stay this time.  I say “this time” because I recall that for a few years after the last war the Bletchley Town Band were a successful combination in national competitions.  They also ran an annual festival in which as many as 40 bands took part.  Then, for various reasons, they simply faded away.

But the story of banding’s ups and downs in this part of the world goes back much further.  Thus, in the first decade of the present century, the Bletchley district boasted two brass bands (apart from the Salvation Army).

One was the Fenny Stratford Prize Band, which was stated at that time to have been about as old as the township’s oldest inhabitant.  It was also stated that, despite its name, it had been a long time since it had taken a prize, not because it no longer deserved to win one, but because “band contests seem to have had their day in this neighbourhood.”  Mr H Franklin had been bandmaster for many years.

The other band was the Bletchley Station Band.  Though this was formed under that name in about 1902, there had been at some remoter time what was known as the “steam shed band.”  Mr A Boughton mastered the Station Band.

Both bands fulfilled engagements around the area, besides giving concerts in the grounds of Bletchley Park and in the Leon Recreation Ground.  There was a bandstand in the “rec,” but all that remained of it when I came to Bletchley after the war was the circular concrete platform.

Mainspring of the Town Band’s post-war revival was their conductor, Bill Axby.  Others prominent were Jack Geen, George Hellier and Percy Barden.  The band also had the assistance of two formidable old-timers, Albert Blackburn and Fred Fielding.

Albert had already had 55 years of banding.  He had played successively with the Leighton Buzzard Excelsior, Bradwell United, Wolverton Territorial, Bletchley Station and Fenny Stratford Prize bands.  At various times he had played the flugel horn, monster bass, medium bass, 1^st and 2^nd trombone, euphonium, and 2^nd and 3^rd cornet.  He returned to banding to play his favourite – the monster bass – but he could no longer march with it at nearing 70 years of age.

Fred, on the other hand, had played nothing but the cornet for over 40 years – two periods with the successful Wolverton Town Band and also periods with Salvation Army bands both in London and hereabouts, including Newport Pagnell, Stony Stratford, New Bradwell and Bletchley.

I note that the recent Milton Keynes contest included the screening of the bands from the sight of the adjudicator, which has been compulsory for many years past.

Albert used to tell some good tales about adjudications. One I particularly liked was about a contest held at Woburn Sands.  Everybody present – except the adjudicator – considered that the Olney band had given by far the best performance.  But the judge, after making the extraordinary remark that he had only received the test piece by post “this morning” and had sat up “all night” studying it, gave first place to a band from Berkhamsted.

The Olney band had the last “word” however.  They lined up on the road and sent the judge on his way home to the strains of the “Dead March” from “Saul”.  Mind you, the judge could have been right about the best performance, whatever everybody else thought.

I remember that, for one contest, Bletchley Town Band were sent a test piece which, according to Bill Axby, had been written only recently and which nobody had heard before.  He was most concerned.  Knowing of my general interest, he came up the office stairs and said: “Tell me:  how fast or slow in andantino in two-four time?”  A good question, as all musicians know.  My dictionary puts it well when it says, first for andante, “Moving with moderately slow, even expression;” and then for andantino, “somewhat slower than andante:   sometimes intended for somewhat quicker.”

So you pays your money and takes your choice!

I pointed out to Bill that the other bands, and probably the adjudicator as well, would all be in the same dilemma, and suggested that the band, when note-perfect, should try the piece out at three slowish speeds and see which sounded best.  Unfortunately, I cannot remember whether this was done, nor how Bletchley figured in the results table.

You can soon become pleasantly hooked on banding.  Even reporters can.  For instance, about 20 years ago I went to Wolverton Park to report a soccer match between Wolverton Town and Bletchley Town.  I arrived just in time for the kick-off and sat down in the primitive press box beside a reporter I thought I knew quite well.

At half-time a change came over him.  He whipped off his raincoat to reveal himself in uniform, then hung a peak cap over one ear, fished a trombone from under the seat and spent the interval parading round the field with the Bradwell band, blowing his trombone for all he was worth.  I thought It a good thing that soccer players no longer stayed on the field to suck their lemons.  Then he came back to his seat and got on with his job as though nothing had happened, though in my opinion he had been the outstanding “player” of the afternoon, passing and shooting with the best of them, but rarely dribbling.

But seriously, I congratulate the Wolverton and Bradwell bands on getting together in the staging of the recent contest.

And to all the many local youngsters now learning to play brass instruments I would say “Stick at it.  I first heard and came to love some of the finest music in the world from brass band versions.  Join a band and some day the Albert Hall itself will be yours for the asking.”