Second best

Back in 1973, a brass band was formed, on the initiative of Ralph Peters, in my village, Port Sunlight. I joined the band in early 1974, to play the baritone. Although I had played the bugle, I had no experience of playing a brass instrument with valves. I could read music, having played the recorder and clarinet earlier, but like most of the players in the band, I was a complete novice. Some of the players, including my brother, David, and trumpet/cornet player Bobby Thelwell were already very good and helped the rest of us along.

Band practice took place on Sunday and Wednesday evenings at the Boys’ Brigade club house in the Lyceum. The band’s name was taken from the building; thus, Lyceum Brass was born.

https://lyceumbrassband.wixsite.com/home

In the early days our band master was Wilf, a retired worker from the soap factory with a passion for brass bands, and a passion for cigarettes. Wilf liked to try out all the instruments whenever possible, so we quickly learned to always remove the mouthpiece whenever leaving the instrument, avoiding the smell and taste of consumed tobacco. In our post covid world, the idea of borrowing someone else’s instrument seems out of the question.

Our early practices concentrated on the red book of hymns for brass bands, with “Cwm Ronddha” and “Ar hyd y nos” as particular favourites.

After a few years, our level of playing improved, likewise our repertoire. Competitions are a part of the brass band culture, both in the UK and internationally. By 1978, we believed ourselves to be ready to enter our first competition in order to qualify for the lowest section of the national and regional brass band league system. Our first competition was in Belle Vue, Manchester. My memory of the occasion may have become a bit hazy for various reasons, but the general course of events was as follows: The competition involved playing a test piece of music for a jury, who were not allowed to see the band performing nor to know which band it was. The piece we had to play was, for us, technically challenging. We practiced for weeks and became quite good at playing it, although by the time we got to the competition, we were a bit sick of it.

As I recall, there was one other band competing for a single place in the section. We were a couple of players short for the performance, so I had to play a combination of first and second baritone, hoping that the judges would not notice. (I believe that there was a comment that the balance between baritone 1 and 2 was good).

While waiting for the results, we all found different ways to amuse ourselves. One of the bass players consumed a few beers then took a ride on the big dipper (Belle Vue had an amusement park) and was somewhat pale by the time the results were presented! The master of ceremonies made the announcement that we had place second in the competition. This caused the other band to celebrate rather enthusiastically until the news that they came third was announced. The judges deemed Lyceum brass to have given the better performance but thought that we needed more time to reach the required standard.

I left the band later that year, as I went of to London to study at university. The band progressed and will celebrate 50 years this year.

All this goes to show that second best is not such a bad thing.

I still play the euphonium and the recorder, although I am no longer at the level I was at in 1978.

The results of my latest scan were really good (no second best here). Everything looked good with no sign of unwelcome visitors inside my head.

Enjoy the summer!