In Good Company: The Blast Of A Band
Enid Blackburn had enjoyed a jolly festival in the park when she wrote this column some years ago.
Whenever there are one or two blowing together, be it pipes, horns or trombones, I always find fetes, carnivals or garden parties more endearing.
There is something about the blast of a band that brings out the best in all of us, no matter how rotten you feel, despite the devastating weather, even sodden soles cannot resist tapping to the beat.
Brass bands represent a working class culture which may fade a little now and then, but one which is never allowed to die. Every so often they burst into popularity again.
Brighouse and Rastrick started our clogs dancing again with their exuberant rendering of the ‘Floral Dance.’ The TV programme ‘Sounding Brass’ revived interest. What a pity that chapel and church have made no effort to reinstate the traditional Whitsuntide march which has happy memories for most Yorkshire folk.
At ‘Racial Harmony’ entertainment in Greenhead Park a major effort was made by all races and creeds to exhibit their differing art and culture. Black, brown or white, there was something for everyone.
Hot dogs, home made cakes, samples of Indian food, samosas and spiced nuts were temptingly displayed on tables in the arena. All selling so briskly, the Italian café proprietor looked quite white as he surveyed his empty chairs.
We were sustained from start to finish by all modes of music. I swung my handbag gaily in time with the bag pipers’ sporrans, which I always find stomach-stirring.
You could see by the length of their necks that some of the drummers had been carrying their instruments for a long time.
One had his drum on such a tight rein his neck appeared to be at right angles to his body, which enabled him to watch his feet as he drummed.
Then I found myself in the middle of a writhing throng, all throbbing furiously to the reggae beat of ‘North Star,’ a West Indian steel band. I just copied the antics of a brown-faced gent in front, who also managed to balance an outsized fish on his head.
Their dancing, like their wide smiles, is so infectious you can’t resist. ‘I can’t stop, man,’ confessed one drummer in a flat cap when their leader, noticing the beer tent, tried to end it all.
The majorettes, obedient, betighted angels of all shapes and sizes – with their eyes so hypnotically fixed straight ahead, you feel they could carry on walking over roundabouts, horses and trees, without once blinking – always make me weep, even when they play in tune.
I missed the Asian contribution, sadly, because I find their weird strains too good for the soul. Drifting towards the source of a savoury odour I did indulge in a samosa, a sort of fried Cornish pasty. One bite and the taste buds explode in a myriad of tongue-rupturing electric shocks. My ensuing breath could have ignited a cigarette at 20 paces. Delicious! Never felt cold again all afternoon.
The Plexus folk trio rounded off the afternoon so beautiful on the ear – as long as they played I wanted to sit and listen, even on wet grass. ‘Matchbox Men’ composed by Bernie Parry, was an additional luxury.
The highlight for some of us, of course, was Birkby Junior steel band with their talented fingers clenched on drumsticks and a mixture of flaxen and woolly heads buried in their pans – definitely a group to watch out for.
Taught by two North Star members and directed by two teachers, the calypso rhythm of these under eleven’s transported us above the rising damp to a land of sunshine and Boney M. And please don’t think that I am prejudiced – but one of the good-looking tambourine shakers is my daughter.
