Every now and then, an American Forces band would parade along Crofts Bank Road in Urmston. How I admired those martial fellows at the front with their trombones emitting the characteristic crisp barking sound now largely lost with the advent of modern, large-bore jobs. I was quite small then and had little idea about music, other than having been told, when two-and-a-half years old on a week's holiday at a boarding house in Blackpool, that I had spontaneously sung "Goodie, Goodie!", at exactly the right moment, in response to a group of young chaps who passed by singing "The Music Goes Round and Round ... and it comes out here...". Nevertheless, my father explained about military and brass bands which, at the time, broadcast quite often on the North Region of the BBC Home Service. He quite liked brass bands and I learned about bands with names like Bickershaw Colliery, Black Dyke Mills, Brighouse and Rastrick, Fairey Aviation Works, Foden's Motor Works, Grimethorpe Colliery, Leyland Motors, Manchester CWS and Wingates Temperance, and that there was a famous boys' band that hailed from Besses o'th' Barn. I really fancied the trombone even then.
Joining the Band
In those days, we lived in Eastwood Avenue in Urmston. My father had joined the Home Guard and had become friendly with a Mr Knape, a shoe-repairer who lived up the avenue and who, my father said, played the euphonium in a local Home Guard band. One day, dad asked me whether I was interested in learning to play: if so, he would have a word with Mr Knape about how to go about it. In the meantime, he suggested I go to a concert at the Curzon Cinema in which Mr Knape would be playing, featuring the Home Guard band and the Rolls-Royce Merlin Male Voice Choir. At a subsequent concert, the Home Guard Band was again featured, but with the Carborundum Choir (yes, it really was called that!).
It turned out that Wilf Knape, besides being an amateur cellist, was also "top" euphonium in the Stretford Borough Band and, the very next Sunday, he took me along to Stretford to the bandroom, where I was introduced to the bandmaster, Mr Hughes, and allowed to stay and listen to the rehearsal. At the end, Mr Hughes (he was always Mr Hughes to me, never "Ernie") asked me what I would like to play. I said, "the trombone". After a pause, he pointed out to me that my little arms were a bit on the short side, but that I could have a go at something called a "tinner 'own". Mr Hughes, I was to learn, had come from Hendon, somewhere "down South". Of course, I jumped at the opportunity and duly took a tenor horn on loan from the band, a Boosey and Hawkes model. What was more, Mr Hughes showed me how to blow the instrument and told me to come half-an-hour early the next Sunday for a lesson, the first of several half-hour Sunday sessions, all for free. That was my first taste of the atmosphere of camaraderie and hospitality of the band.
Once I could blow some decent notes, I was given the Solo Cornet part of "Sicilian Vespers" to practice at home: in at the deep end and a testing baptism, but probably a rapid results method that seemed to work for me. Apart from those half-dozen or so sessions with the bandmaster, I have been entirely self-taught. Nowadays, of course, young brass players may have had tuition in school, while many opportunities exist for formal musical education and instrumental performance tuition and there are plenty of young people in the bands, auguring well for the future.
Very soon, I was sitting in with the band in the 2nd Horn seat with Dick Mitton next to me on 1st Horn and Eddie Hughes on Solo Horn. At that time, I was the only juvenile in the band and I recall with great affection the kindness of the band members towards me. In particular, Ernie Hughes and Wilf Knape I know always looked out for me, while Dick Mitton was something of a father figure to me, a great comfort to a young lad in otherwise adult company. In due course, I was given a Stretford Borough bandsman's hat, complete with badge and a pair of epaulettes for my gaberdine raincoat. I was so proud to wear it when I travelled to rehearsal on the 3, 5 or 12 bus from Urmston to King Street or the 22 to Stretford Station, even though the smallest hat the band had was too large and, in fact, came down over my ears.
My View from the 2nd Horn Seat
The site on Edge Lane interested me. At the top of the downhill approach, but facing onto Edge Lane was a trim little coal office with a scale model of a coal wagon in the window ("Lancashire Associated Collieries", it said on the side). Descent of the slope threw up a view of the electric line from Manchester to Altrincham on the left as you approached the bandroom, with the Bridgewater Canal and occasional swans on the right. At the bottom of the slope were two large huts: on the left, the bandroom and, on the right by the canal, a workshop in which there was an assortment of hand presses and other sheet metal working equipment, where, apparently, the Hughes brothers worked. Besides Eddie on Solo Horn, Bob and Frank were also in the band. Frank Hughes was a back row cornet, while I think Bob Hughes was the other trombone, but I cannot now be sure of that.
Others who figured in my young brass world were Bob Wray on trombone, Vince Bratley on Bass Trombone, John Richardson on Solo Cornet, Jack Garside on, I think, Soprano Cornet, Jack Welch on BB-flat bass and Mr Kenyon on E-flat bass. It amused me that these last instruments were sometimes referred to in the parts as "bombardons" – it being war time and all that. John Richardson I remember as a being a relatively young man, quiet, elegant and dignified. To my ears (and I am sure to those of others), his tone was very special and his solo passages bewitching. Vince's very long slide (I fancy he still had a G bass trombone), operated by a pivoted lever with a snazzy handle, would shoot in towards me from the left. Behind it, beside the threatening bell, Vince's pebble-glass spectacles gave him quite a ferocious look, I thought, but he was really quite jolly. Jack Welsh was a big man who was always very kind and considerate towards me. Quite often he would accidentally throw in expletives (nothing awful, though) of which I am sure he was quite unaware. Ernie Hughes and others would gently remind him that there was a young lad present. He was always mortified and I felt for him, even at that age, as I knew he never intended any rudeness. I came to know Mr Kenyon well. His son, Tony, was away in the forces, and I suspect I had been his replacement. Mr Kenyon came from Flixton, somewhere near Chassen Road, and had a Ford ("Fordson") light lorry with a tarpaulin cover, open at the back. When band practice was over, he would often give several of us, including Wilf Knape and myself, a lift back to Urmston. We would climb up over the tailgate and sit on the boards for the duration of the trip. Tragically, he later told us that Tony had been killed in action, just when hostilities had all but ended. Not long afterwards, he and Mrs Kenyon generously asked me round to their home for tea.
Performances
The staple repertoire has stayed with me. I enjoyed the marches, such as "Light of Foot", "With Sword and Lance", "Vimy Ridge", the rousing "Standard of St. George" and, best of all, the "BB&CF". Once Sunday opening time was past, Jack Welch always amused by calling for "The Call of the (y)East". Speaking of the BB&CF, I was always tickled by the heated discussions that arose over letters to the brass band journals, not least when matters concerning contest rules, adjudicators (in closed booths or not), player registration and the like came up. In recent years, I have subscribed to "Brass Band News" and see that nothing has changed; and, indeed, my wife refers to it "Trouble at t'Mill". Overtures and selections were always good fun: for example, "Sicilian Vespers", "La Traviata", "Il Trovatore", "The Bronze Horse", "Three Blind Men of Toledo", "Pique Dame", "Light Cavalry" and "Zampa". I don't remember many solos being played, although Eddie Hughes once did "Silver Threads Among the Gold". He complained that his embouchure had started to leak, but I could never hear it – it sounded quite beautiful to me.
Most of the pieces were not too demanding of a 2nd horn. For the most part, marches consisted largely of repeated "blank-t, blank-ti, blank titti-ti-ti" while in three time it was a slower "blank-ti-ti" repeated (the blanks being rests where the basses went "oomp"). Selections from popular shows, such as "The Desert Song","The Student Prince", "Show Boat", "Rose Marie", and so on, offered more variety. "Rose Marie" holds a special memory. During a performance of this particular item on the bandstand in Longford Park on a pleasant, balmy evening with a fair-sized and attentive audience, it darkened and the skies opened. At the end of the piece, Ernie turned with a grand flourish and, as usual, an equally florid bow. It was only as he straightened that he became aware that there was by now no audience at all. The effect was hilarious.
Later on, in the 1980s, I once again came upon that bandstand, which had by that time been removed for preservation at the Crich Tramway Museum (there was a small plaque commemorating its removal). It was difficult to imagine how we had all been sqeezed onto it, instruments, stands and all. A good deal of the time, wives and children of the band members constituted the mainstay of the audience at our park concerts, but there would usually be good attendances in church halls and similar venues. At one concert in a packed church hall in Derbyshire Lane, someone seated behind my parents had spotted my diminutive figure behind my tenor horn and had commented that she didn't imagine I had enough puff for it.
One particular church engagement was memorable. We arrived in Tottington, near Bury, after a series of minor delays on the way, just in time for the projected start of the service at which we were to play. It was then that we realised that Tottington Church was at the top of a faily steep hill approached only by a footpath. Up we went, but even before the top some were seriously struggling. No matter, we got there and entered the back of the church, just as the vicar was setting things in motion. We had no idea where we were supposed to go, so the first band members filed into the rearmost pews; and the rest of us followed. No sooner had we seated ourselves and got our music ready than the first hymn was announced. Nothing for it but to get cracking but, needless to say, most of us had not got our breath back. The result sounded quite appalling, but we were alright for the remainder of the service. And the vicar was really quite nice about it.
They've No Chance!
The band was duly entered for the contest at Belle Vue in the Fourth Section. Preparation was intense for the performance of Eric Ball's "Thanksgiving", a relatively short piece, but atmospheric and satifying. I can't think why it is never played nowadays. As the great day approached, we were joined by Ken Wray, Bob Wray's son. The war was over and Ken was at that time playing with Oscar Rabin's band. He was obviously a crack trombonist but, for once , confessed to being in some difficulty as he had become used to playing only in bass clef and had become unfamiliar with the tenor clef in which brass band tenor trombone parts were then scored. He went with us to the contest and executed the trombone solo with aplomb. Later, Ken was to be a regular with Kenny Baker's Dozen, rotating with Keith Christie; and, only recently, someone on the web was lamenting that such a daring, incisive and inventive jazz soloist had not been heard more often in the intervening years.
The contest was not without its funny side. In the event, a room at a pub (sorry, "hotel") on Hyde Road had been booked for a practice session beforehand. We all got there in plenty of time and went upstairs to the practice room, only to find that a rival band, rejoicing in the title of "Clayton Aniline Works Band", was already in occupation. Almost immediately, they began to play. One of our number number noted the time and peered through the keyhole to see what they looked like and to listen. As they approached the closing bars, our man looked again at his watch and announced: "they're far too slow – way over the allowance – they'll not make it ... probably be disqualified". That was one opponent out of the reckoning, then.
After what seemed like an interminable period in the Belle Vue Gardens waiting to play late in the order, looking at flowers, trees and animals and listening to the screams from the Bob's Coaster and the trumpetting of the elephants, we performed (in the Pagoda, I think) to our genuine satisfaction. After that, we went to listen to several performances from First Section bands in another hall. The test piece there was an arrangement of Brahms' "Academic Fesival Overture". I was spellbound. Came the results: had we done it? No, alas! It was Clayton Aniline, after all. Never mind, upwards and onwards!
The War Ends
The end of WWII brought great relief, rejoicing and celebration. Outstanding for me was taking part in a victory parade after VJ day, in which we marched from Albert Square in Manchester to Platt Fields Park. I well recall seeing a band set off on horseback with great pomp and with a drum major, also on horseback, wielding a huge staff which he repeatedly flung high into the air and infallibly caught. It seemed the band of the Stockport Yeomanry was well known for his exploits. More than twenty bands took part and we were somewhere in the middle of the marching order. As can be imagined, the bands were quite close to one another. Although, for a time, we seemed to alternate performances successfully, later we found ourselves overlapping with performances in front and behind. It was bedlam, but nobody cared!
I was not in the band long enough to be drawn into the social side to any extent and, in any case, until close to the end, I was the only young person. I do, though, remember a coach trip on Sykes' "chara" to Llandudno. I was on the back seat with some other children of band members, one of whom was Richard Mitton, son of Dick. I know we had a very good time that day. Richard joined the band in rehearsal at our end of the front-row cornets shortly before I left and I recall that we both had sports coats with the leather elbow patches that were so popular at the time.
After elementary school, I went to secondary school in Salford, where one of my classmates, Peter Thomas, was a cornet player in Besses Boys' Band. I thought he must be a genius. A year or so later, in 1946, the family moved to Preston, where I had been born and spent the first four years of my life before we had moved to Flixton in 1938 and then Urmston in 1939.
The Brass Band Spirit Persists
That wasn't quite the end, though, for I kept in contact with Dick Mitton for a while and, to my suprise and pleasure, was invited back to Stretford one Sunday to sit in with the band. In the event, I was accorded the privilege of sitting next to John Richardson on the front row of the cornets. What an honour! When we tuned up, something seemed not quite right, but it was only when we got started that I realised what the problem was. I was playing my trumpet, and it was, in fact, a low pitch (A=440) instrument, as opposed to the high pitch (A=456) cornets of that period. It was impossible (and too late) for me to tune upwards and I was by no means good enough to transpose in real time, so I put in the odd notes that I managed to calculate and hoped that it went unnoticed. If not, then everyone was too polite to remark upon it. After that Dick said that I should go with him and Richard to their home in Era Street, where Dick and Mrs Mitton made me wonderfully welcome and we had lunch. Such kindnesses as that are unforgettable.
A bit later, I learned that the band were having an outing to the Lake District and would be passing through Preston. My parents suggested I go to the A6, which was quite close to our house, as the coach would almost certainly pass that way and I could give it a wave. When it came, I recognised it and waved vigorously. Lots of waves came back, and then the coach came to a sharp halt, the door opened, and it was Dick Mitton saying I could go with them if I wished. I realised that, at my age, to leave the house to wave at a coach and not return until late was bound to have repercussions and I felt I must decline and waved them goodbye.
The last time I saw the band, it was purely by chance. I had cycled to Blackpool and thought I would look in at Stanley Park. On an advertisement hoarding was an announcement that the Stretford Borough Band was to play there that very day; and, there they were on the bandstand - terrific. I stayed for a while, but then had to leave, as I was expected back home.
As I have mentioned, Wilf Knape and my father had become friends, as had Betty Knape, Wilf's wife, and my mother. We later heard that the Knapes had taken on a boarding-house in Blackpool, overlooking the lovely gardens in Gynn Square. We visited them more than once around Christmas time. The view of the waves breaking over the promenade from their elevated vantage point was quite breathtaking.
Overall, I had a wonderful time with the band, an experience I look back on with fondness and gratitude; for, I believe, without my early exposure to music and the opportunity to learn an instrument, life would have been very different at many points later on.
Life After the Band
My new school in Preston had a small orchestra and I suppose I saw an opportunity to play again but, of course, I was now without an instrument. However, my father bought me a second-hand cornet and I joined the school orchestra, only to be thrown out after just two weeks. The conductor, an irrascible chemistry master, later relented and I then had a happy time in the orchestra, in which my colleague on cornet was Denis Haydock, son of the famous conductor of no less than the Bickershaw Colliery Band, William Haydock. We became good school friends and on several occasions played cornet duets at school concerts: "Ida and Dot" was one, I remember. Denis was far better than I and was a front row cornet in Bickershaw's junior band and sometimes conducted it (he even had a bandmaster's outfit made to fit). Later on, I recall playing a solo ("Il Bacio").
My father must have realised how enthusiastic I was, as he scrimped in order to get enough together to buy me a Besson "New Creation" trumpet. New musical instruments were in very short supply at the time, 1947, so we had to wait quite a while and, even then, the laquered model (as played by Kenny Baker with the Ted Heath Orchestra) that we had selected and that I preferred was unavailable, so my father accepted the plated model "with gold bell" that we had to go and collect from Rushworth & Dreaper's in Liverpool, even though it was more expensive. I played trumpet at school events.
For one of these events, four of us formed a improvised Dixieland combo in which I aped the send-up clarinet, trombone and trumpet solos of the Pee Wee Hunt recording that was all the rage at the time. One of the others, a "natural" pianist, played in a one of the local dance hall big bands and, through him, I was able to sit in with the trumpet section - great experience. I also recall playing the Second Movement of Haydn's Trumpet Concerto one-handed at a school concert. It was to have been the sparkling Rondo Third Movement, but by the day of the concert, my left arm was in a sling following a fall in the playground. My "tour-de-force" on another occasion, however, was my transposition to B-flat of the violin solo, with piano accompaniment, of "Jealousy", trying to be a budding Eddie Calvert. Soon after this last, I was was invited, out of the blue, to join the Lancashire Youth Orchestra.
There was a brass band in Preston, the Preston Silver Band, from which Eddie Calvert had himself emerged, and there were probably others; but school work became more important and I never did play in a brass band again.
Postscript
University came next for me, studying medicine at King's College, London. Here, I joined the King's orchestra. Gilbert (of Gilbert and Sullivan) had been a King's "engineer", i.e. an engineering graduate, so we naturally played G&S and used bits from the operettas in skits in student shows. I also joined the University of London Orchestra under the baton of John Hollingsworth, well known for his film music. At one of our concerts, we did the "Academic Festival Overture", reawakening past memories: the Principal Trumpet part was great fun to play. Just a little way further down the Strand from King's, R. Smith & Co. had a retail shop, where I was able to purchase a number of Solo Cornet parts without having to get a full band set. I still have them.
Meanwhile, a number of us in a student residence formed a dance band ("The Platanics"), playing for hops and dances at hospitals and nurses' homes around south London. Later, in my clinical years at King's College Hospital (KCH), I joined the London Hospitals Symphony Orchestra, then directed by a new up-and-coming conductor, Colin Davis. Our dance band, which I now led, did more gigs around London hospitals and, on two occasions, played as the intermission band, to Geraldo and Sid Phillips, respectively, at two KCH all-night May Balls that were held on the first-floor function deck of the then quite new Royal Festival Hall with its panoramic views over the Thames. But then, with final exams looming, we called it a day.
My only "public" performance after that was to play "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White" to the festive staff at a 1959 New Year 1959 party at the Royal Hospital, Wolverhampton. Otherwise there was no opportunity to practice or play. In fact, the only subsequent opportunity to practise came when a military posting with the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps for three years from 1960-1963, in lieu of two years' National Service, took me for a time to Longue Pointe in Montreal, where I was able to practise in the bandroom of the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Band School. On my return to England, the nature of my work and living in flats precluded playing a brass instrument. By and large, brass instruments and leases on flats with neighbours don't mix! We now have "Silent Brass", of course.
As I have already indicated, had it not been for Wilf Knape, the Stretford Borough Band and its generous conductor, Ernie Hughes, and its members, I believe none of these musical episodes, from which I drew so much satisfaction at the time, would have happened; nor might I have enjoyed the satisfaction of a lifelong love of music.
Retirement and Playing Again --- and Finding Sale Brass Band on the Web
So, for some 30 years, I did not play at all but, in retirement, I again took up the trumpet and fulfilled my latent ambition to own a trombone, at last, together with some other instruments, just for personal enjoyment; and what fun it is once more. I also have a good collection of brass band, big band and orchestral records. When you're over seventy it pays to keep the brain cells ticking over (or so my wife says – she also says it keeps me off the streets), so I have been studying music with the Open University. I gained the Diploma in Music last year and am currently working on my Dissertation for the MA in Music. It's tough, but I am finding it very rewarding.
I had long wondered what had become of the "Stretford Borough (Prize) Band" (that was the legend on the bass drum when I was a member of the band); and I only recently became aware of the Sale Band web site. The website is very informative, especially Clive's fascinating history of the band, most of which was unknown to me. His account of the relationship between the Stretford Borough and Stretford Old Bands, also unknown to me, did help explain the odd hints of "previous history" I had detected during my time with the band. Another point Clive made has intrigued me. During the time I attended band rehearsals, we had a full complement of players and I am sure attendance was very good, but I was completely unaware that only nine of its number were actually "regulars", as it were. Certainly, it did not in any perceptible way hinder the camaraderie.
I recognised a number of band members in the photographs on the website, and the presence of the contact link on the home page persuaded me to contact Clive. In his reply, he mentioned several individuals who were still in the band when he joined in 1968. From what he said, it has occurred to me that I may be, perhaps, one of the few surviving members of the wartime band – perhaps the only one. While I cannot be quite sure of the exact dates on which I joined and left the band, it may be that the band records will throw further light on that. Be that as it may, the result of my contact with Clive is this personal trip down memory lane.
Bernard Hayes – March 2008.