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Whit Friday - 1st June 2007
We set off at 9am from St John’s church, with the sun shining and the sounds of ‘Brassed Off’ booming from the speakers. Once again Richard was the first to crack open the beer!
After picking up old friends from Brass Band Imperial and Swinton Band we had a quick run-through at Birch Services on the M62, waiting patiently for Shanklin Town Band to stop rehearsing and then doing our best to avoid the coaches in the car park. There was quite a lot of confusion over whether the first double tap meant stop marching but keep playing or the second time meant keep marching…. In fact the confusion continued well into the night!
Our first village was Delph. There was time for a quick drink (and a chat to the band who’d dressed entirely as pirates) and then we were off! We marched to the Wallace and Gromit theme tune and then played Punchinello on the stand. We bumped into former solo horn Marge Walsh and agreed to try and catch up with her and Ian later.
Next up was Dobcross and we successfully managed to negotiate the steep bend in the cobbled street before arriving at the village green. But no time to stop and drink at this village as we went straight onto Greenfield.
At Greenfield we met Jeff, who had missed the coach in the morning but had valiantly made his way oop north by train, minicab and charm. We had a bit of time to kill here so had a few drinks and checked out the other bands – including the Royal Northern band who’d dressed in 70s gear (and no we are not considering this as our new band uniform!)
Then it was onto Uppermill, where we caught up with Ian and Marge Walsh
who were marching with Poulton Le Fyde Band. We also saw Rob Horscroft,
another former principal cornet who is now playing with Brighouse and Rastrick.
By now it was dark but by this point we knew our marches quite well! We then went onto Denshaw to hear a couple more bands, before making our way down south and home.
We said goodbye to Markus and friends and then finally made it back to Penge at about 4.30am, tired but happy. Once again the Whit Friday marches were a winner – many thanks to all those who came along and helped make it such a huge success.
Crystal Palace Results;
| Contest |
Rank |
Entries |
| Delph |
50 |
84 |
| Dobcross |
50 |
61 |
| Greenfield |
50 |
67 |
| Lydgate |
45 |
66 |
| Uppermill |
31 |
59 |
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