29th October 2000 - Pontins (Championship)

Adjudicators: Dr Roy Newsome, Geoffrey Whitham
Test Piece: Paganini Variations, Philip Wilby
Venue: Fun Factory Ballroom, Pontins, Prestatyn

This contest was always going to be a challenge for the band, coming as it did so soon after the contest in Switzerland, where we had had to play two different test pieces. To get another one up in such a short period of time was difficult, and was complicated by the fact that David Roberts, our conductor, was playing cornet with Grimethorpe at the national finals the weekend before the contest. This meant that we had four different conductors over the week before the nationals, where we were taken by David, then Malcolm Brownbill, John Gillam and Ian Brownbill before finally returning to David on the Sunday evening, a week before the contest.

We loaded up the coach at the band room (in the rain), and then set off for Wales at about 3pm on the Saturday afternoon, and arrived at the hotel just before 6pm. We then had time to settle into our rooms before eating an evening meal together in the hotel.

One band member, who shall remain nameless, was seen running around all the band’s rooms, knocking on each door to see if they had seen her uniform bag. It wasn’t to be found anywhere, and it turned out that it had been left in the boot of her car back at the bandroom. Her parents had come by car, and so set off for the drive back up to Leeds to fetch it.

The band settled down for a practice in the evening without a sop player (who was playing for the other Rothwell band at a concert) or a first baritone (who was looking after his new baby son). This made some of the piece sound a little strange, but the practice was reasonable. At the end of the practice (and in preparation for a concert in the week after the contest) we played through a bass trombone solo and hymn tune, with David introducing the pieces to the “audience”, made up of our supporters and the odd bemused waiter trying to clear up the tables from dinner.

After the practice, we all took over the hotel bar, sat in a big circle. After a couple of hours, the “forgetful” band member’s uniform was delivered to the hotel by her parents after a mammoth round trip, to cheers from the band and wind-up’s of “That’s not my suit carrier,” and “I meant the other one in the boot.”

In good spirits as always, the band had a good nights sleep (this time without quite so much snoring – we gave Dave Fowler a wing of the hotel to himself) and convened for breakfast at 9am, followed by a practice at 11am. This went well, and it gave us a confidence boost to have all the players missing the previous night now present in the band.

After the practice we checked out of our rooms, then at 1pm we had a photograph taken for Brass Band World’s centre pages. This was as a direct result of our success in Switzerland the previous month, and it took longer than expected with the photographer wanting everything perfectly in place.

Then, finally, it was time to go to the contest. It was again raining, and we all got rather damp loading all the equipment onto the bus. We got to the holiday camp, and drove around the site for a couple of circuits, trying to find out where we were supposed to go. We ended up in a laundry room, which was supposed to be a warm up room, and so we duly set up the small bits of percussion we needed for the piece ready to play, and then it turned out that the hall was miles away, and we couldn’t leave anything in the warm up room, so we had to take all the instruments and cases to the hall. Which was a five minute walk away. And it was still raining.

After a brief diversion to a Pontins chalet to get rid of the cases, and then to registration, we moved onto the stage to set up the percussion gear. The band then joined us and we played superbly, again up to the standard that we reached in Switzerland, and we were very well received by the audience. Brad Parsk, one of our percussionists, was playing in his very first contest, and did an excellent job, despite technical troubles with the snare drum.

After playing and loading the equipment back on the bus (in the rain again, spot the recurring theme?), we retired to the bar via the fish and chip shop, and settled down to wait for the contest to finish and wait for the results. Leeds United and Bradford were playing each other at football on a big screen in the bar, so that kept some of the band amused.

We then went into the hall to hear the results and Brad went up on stage as band representative. Before the results proper, there was a presentation for best soloist of the day, which went to Len Charnock, the Euphonium soloist from the Wingates band. We thought at this point that we had been beaten into second place, as the talk in the bar was that of all the bands on the day, us and Wingates were the best. We were quite relieved to hear they had got second place.

The results were as follows:

1. Rothwell Temperance
2. Wingates
3. Aveley & Newham
4. Mount Charles
5. Ashton-under-Lyne
6. Stalybridge Old

7. Kibworth
8. Soham Comrades
9. Peter Hawke Garages Lindley
10. Camborne Town
11. Todmorden Old
12. E.Y.M.S.
13. SWT Woodfalls
14. Staffordshire
15. City of Oxford Silver
16. Woolley Pritchard Sovereign Brass
17. BTM
18. Hepworth
19. Kidlington Concert Brass

So Brad, in his first ever brass band contest, got to go pick up the trophies for first place.

After that, it was straight back up the motorway (after we’d found everyone) for beer and pizza back in the bandroom. A good time was had by all during the weekend, including Dai “who’s nicked my beer” Hale, which just leaves me with the weekend’s favourite phrase or saying. After Switzerland’s “wutsaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah”, and with a little bit of inspiration from local radio, things came back to a more Yorkshire tone with “ayyy-uuuuuuuuuuuuup”

Tim Sawyer
Percussion
30th October, 2000