Crowds of people from all over the East Midlands came to Derby to enjoy a nostalgic day of music and marching, organised by a local actor making a film about the heyday of carnival bands.
Carnival banders past and present came to Borrowash Victoria Football Club’s grounds on Sunday for the Banding Together day put on by Derby-born actor and musician David Chabeaux, who grew up in the Derby Serenaders and starred in the final scenes of hit TV show Peaky Blinders.
With performances from the Ambassadors of Derby and the Melton Mowbray Toy Soldiers – two of the very few bands from a once thriving carnival banding scene that are still active – it was a nostalgic occasion for the hundreds of people who turned up to re-live the glory days. They were joined by members of many bands including the Heanor Lions, Spondon Legionnaires, Derby Serenaders, Eastwood Arcadians, Breaston Highlanders and more.
Some who turned up to the event said they had not clapped eyes on each other in decades, and many got fully into the spirit of the occasion by rising to their feet and spontaneously marching together to music as they once did at carnival parades every weekend.
Trumpet player Dean Turner-Moss, who joined Langley Mill Jubilee Band at the age of nine and stayed on until it disbanded in 1999, said: “I just have really good memories of it all.
“It wasn’t just the music. It was the travelling every weekend of every summer. You knew you were going to be in a different part of the country every weekend.”
At the Banding Together day, Dean met up with fellow ex bander Sarah Brown, whom he had not seen for 22 years. Sarah herself had been a member of no fewer than seven carnival bands, including the Eastwood Arcadians, the Breaston Highlanders, the Spondon Legionnaires and the Heanor Lions.
“We wouldn’t have been able to afford to go away on holidays so the bands were our holiday,” she said, “… especially when you got the ones on the coast, like going to Skeggy for the day!
“It was more than a hobby. It was a lifestyle, and I do miss it.”
Many people said they loved coming back to the Banding Together event to find somewhere they “belonged” once again. The carnival banding movement which lasted for much of the 20th century once saw many generations of the same families all practising, playing and marching together several times a week, and many met their spouses at band practice too.
Hollie Baker, band master of the Ambassadors of Derby of which she has been a member for the past 14 years, playing “a variety of saxophones,” said: “We just have fun. We’ve loved the Banding Together day. We had some of our past band members playing with us.”
Roger Tinsley, a member of the Melton Mowbray Toy Soldiers for the past 50 years, showed off his skills dressed in the soldiers’ military-inspired outfit complete with bearskin hat. Other members of the Toy Soldiers said the band was still going and would love to welcome new people, especially brass players, to practices on Monday nights.
Roger, 71, put in a dazzling display on the bass drum despite having broken both arms a few years ago, as well as cracking eight ribs and two vertebrae on his back.
He said: “On the bass drum I’m the heartbeat of the band. I’ve bounced back from my injuries. It’s great to be here and back with the other bands who are here as well.”
Visitors to the Banding Together day, which was supported by Barton Buses, East Midlands Chamber, Derby Museums with its Makory bus, plus Derbyshire companies Lubrizol, Smith Partnership, and Cosy Direct, also got the chance to admire a parade of uniforms from different bands, as well as spot familiar faces in a gallery of old photos.
The event was a fundraiser for David Chabeaux’s film project, Moz’s Band, which is celebrating the magic of carnival bands and is a particular tribute to his grandfather, Moz Ward, who lived and breathed music and led the Derby Serenaders to spectacular success over many years, with 23 league titles and an appearance on BBC1’s Generation Game in front of 19 million viewers in 1979.
David said: “It was wonderful, and very moving for me, to see so many people come to the Banding Together day and enjoy the music, marching and inter-generational bonding that brought so many of us together back in the day.
“I’ve never known a sense of belonging like I did when I was part of the Derby Serenaders and I want to spark a new social movement that brings this sense of connection and belonging back to today’s younger generations.”
For more information about the Moz’s Band project, see www.mozs.band/.
