Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 5287 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| A YEAR WITH BRIGHOUSE AND RASTRICK BAND | 1965-1966 | 1965-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: Standard 8 Colour: Black & White / Colour Sound: Sound Duration: 7 mins 37 secs |
| Summary This is a review of a year in the life of the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band as the band tours the country, playing in various concerts and competitions. |
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Description
This is a review of a year in the life of the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band as the band tours the country, playing in various concerts and competitions.
Title - A Year with Brighouse and Rastrick Band
(Col.) The film begins at the Headquarters of the Brighouse and Rastrick Band, known as ‘Briggers’, where the band are rehearsing, under the baton of Walter B Hargreaves, trumpet professor to the Royal Marines. The film switches to show a poster advertising a Sunday Brass Band Concerts...
This is a review of a year in the life of the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band as the band tours the country, playing in various concerts and competitions.
Title - A Year with Brighouse and Rastrick Band
(Col.) The film begins at the Headquarters of the Brighouse and Rastrick Band, known as ‘Briggers’, where the band are rehearsing, under the baton of Walter B Hargreaves, trumpet professor to the Royal Marines. The film switches to show a poster advertising a Sunday Brass Band Concerts at Peasholm Park, including the Brighouse and Rastrick Band, in August. They make their way out to the bandstand on the lake by boat.
(B&W) Then they are at Broadcasting House in Leeds. A show programme for a concert at Carlton Main Colliery in 1963 is displayed.
(Col.) Also displayed is a poster for another concert at a coastal town for Sunday Sept. 5th. The band disembarks from their coach at their destination, and they play on a bandstand at an outdoors concert on a sunny day, with the horn soloist, Jeffrey Hurst.
(B&W) Then there is a programme for the Festival of Brass Concert at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, conducted by Lawrence Leonard.
(Col.) The band is next seen on a coach journey to the Royal National Eisteddfod Festival in at Llangollen, Wales, with the band secretary, Mr Badrock, having a nap on the coach. The band was the runner up at the competition, where the BBC stalls can be seen. This is followed by the International Eisteddfod Musical Festival, on 5-10 July 1966. They are joined by the Black Dyke Band and Fodens Motor Works Band at the celebratory concert, with Dr Dennis Wright as the guest conductor. There are scenes of the town and the outdoors concert. The bands wait to play inside a large marquee, shown on close circuit TV to the 12,000 people in attendance.
The film then shows a picture of the band’s original uniform followed someone sporting the modern one. The programmes for the various concerts the band gave during the year are shown, including at Doncaster, Grimsby, Oldham, Thorn, Harrogate, Halifax, Scarborough, Otley, Wakefield, Brighton and Manchester. The narrator states that “the highlight of the year is at Belle Vue, Manchester for the British Open Championship on Saturday 4th Sept., 1965”. The Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band come second. The film finishes with images of Belle Vue fairground and zoo, with the commentator noting that the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band are unusual in getting no support from either a factory or a colliery.
Context
It isn’t known who shot this film of the Brighouse and Rastrick Band, presumably a band member or someone else associated with the tour. It was donated along with another film A weekend with Black Dyke, made by Pedro Films of a visit by the Black Dyke Band to Roubaix in France as part of Roubaix’s 500th anniversary celebrations in 1969. Although the title states “A Year”, there are indications that the film might cover three years, from 1963 to 1966. The uncertainty concerns making out the...
It isn’t known who shot this film of the Brighouse and Rastrick Band, presumably a band member or someone else associated with the tour. It was donated along with another film A weekend with Black Dyke, made by Pedro Films of a visit by the Black Dyke Band to Roubaix in France as part of Roubaix’s 500th anniversary celebrations in 1969. Although the title states “A Year”, there are indications that the film might cover three years, from 1963 to 1966. The uncertainty concerns making out the date for the concert at Carlton Main Colliery: is it 1963?
The Brighouse and Rastrick Temperance Band, formed around 1881 in the heyday of similar bands and forms amateur music making in the industrial areas of the North of England. “Temperance” was dropped from the name in the (now just B&R). They grew to be a force to be reckoned with when, in the 1930s, they won the September Championship (today the British Open) three years running in 1932-33-34 conducted by William Halliwell. They won it again in 1936, but didn’t regain it until 1978. As the commentary in the film states, it was one of the few top bands not to be sponsored by either a colliery or a factory. For more on the history of brass bands see the Context for Bands And Banners (1991). Unless one is involved in the world of brass bands, it isn’t easy to keep track of all the different national brass band competitions. The B&R website provides some help. In 1945 the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain began superseding the ‘Great National Band Festival’ which had been held at the Crystal Palace and Alexandra Palace from 1900. These contests were just called the ‘Crystal Palace Contests’ prior to this. The new ‘National’ title was won a year later in 1946 for the first time by B&R, conducted by Eric Ball. The ‘World Championship’ was introduced in 1968 and B&R were the first victors, conducted now by Walter Hargreaves. They successfully retained the title a year later to become the only band to win this short-lived contest more than once. It would be interesting to known when they played at the Festival of Brass Concert at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. Famously Bob Dylan played there in 1965 and again on 17 May 1966 when the notorious cry of “Judas” was called out. Many of the places seen in the film are now gone. These include Carlton Main Colliery, closed in 1993 –although its famous band survives as Carlton Main Frickley Colliery Band. Also, both the Black Dyke Band and Fodens Motor Works Band are still going very strongly, the latter now minus the “Motor Works” bit. The Royal National Eisteddfod Festival in at Llangollen is also still going. The BBC Old Broadcasting House on Woodhouse Lane is still there, although the BBC moved out in 2004: it is now owned by Leeds Beckett University, providing facilities for businesses. Roy Newsome’s book, The Modern Brass Band, provides a detailed account of brass band appearances on TV and radio during the post-war decades. Brass bands are of course strongly associated with mining, and now have the function of keeping alive the memory of mining and other industrial communities after the closures of pits and factories: wonderfully brought to life in the 1995 film Brassed Off’s portrayal of events at Grimethorpe Colliery in South Yorkshire when it was announced that the pit was to close. Today, Brighouse and Rastrick continues to be supported by public subscriptions and its own fund raising efforts, spurning commercial interests, yet still regarded as one of the ‘elite’ on the contest and concert platforms. In Christmas 1977 they put out a single, The Floral Dance, pipped to the No. 1 spot by Paul McCartney's Mull of Kintyre. References Roy Newsome, The Modern Brass Band - from the 1930s to the New Millennium, Ashgate, 2006. Brighouse and Rastrick Band |
