Barnard Castle

Parkinson’s didn’t stop me making music with other people. Here’s how my local band helped me to keep playing.

When I was 61, I started trombone lessons. My daughter Rosie had played the trombone (rather well) at school. She once played on the hallowed turf at Lord’s cricket ground, with the school band in the luncheon interval. When she went to uni she left it in the attic. It gathered dust there for a while until I took it to my local band, Penrith Town Band, and asked if anybody could teach me to play it. Step in Ian Butterworth, the band’s Musical Director, who combines the patience of Job with a wacky sense of humour.

My slide positions were a work of fiction, especially those between 3 and 4. A and A flat were pretty much the same animal, and any piece with semiquavers was a challenge.  But I was deemed good enough to play, first in the intermediate section – a motley crew of children, beginner adults and ‘rusty’ adults returning after a long absence. Then I joined the main band, where I sat alongside veteran trombonist Sidney Tyson, who had joined the band more than 70 years ago.

I love making music with other people. I hadn’t done since my teens, when I played guitar in a folk band called Hetty Pegler’s Tump. I then married into a very musical family and hid my average talents for the next 30 years.

Multitasking

Penrith Town Band’s civic duties include leading the parade through town for Remembrance Day in November, Follow the Cross on Good Friday and Mayday carnival. This is a triumph of multitasking – reading the music (sometimes very wet music), marching in time, hitting the right notes, and not tripping over speed bumps. Further afield, I travelled to the traditional Whit Sunday marches. If you’ve seen Brassed Off, you’ll know this is where bands scurry between villages in Greater Manchester with names that wouldn’t look out of place in the rota for the Trumpton Fire Brigade.*   We also travelled to the Durham Miners’ Gala, where the trombone slide was handy for carving a swathe through the drunken crowds.

For a couple of years I marched to the best of my ability, but I’m not sure how many right notes I parped out. If any. I worried that if I tripped, the whole band would lurch into the back of me and we would all collapse like dominoes.

My new baby

About two years ago I started to notice that I wasn’t hitting the high notes as well as I could.  My left arm felt weak, and I couldn’t lift the instrument high enough or for long enough.  A video of a parade showed me so hunched over the instrument that it was nearly touching the floor. Following my diagnosis, I went to Ian in tears and said, “I can’t play this [xxxx] thing any more.”

He dived straight into the band room cupboard and brought out a tenor horn. “Try this.” In a brass band the tenor horn is the baby of the ‘cuddly’ instruments – the ones you wrap your arms around. They go up in size through baritone, euphonium, and two sizes of tuba – the E flat and the B flat.  

I thought I would have to go back six years to square one, but Ian put a single sheet of paper in front of me. In one column he’d written the trombone slide positions, and next to them the corresponding horn valve positions. I was up and running immediately, with a clear distinction between A and A flat. I could play semiquavers for the first time! Everything sounded better than the half-baked notes I’d been squeezing out of my reluctant trombone. Very soon I could rejoin the intermediate band, and my lovely band colleagues welcomed me with open arms. Thank you, folks!

Parkinson’s didn’t stop me making music with others.  COVID did, but that’s another story. I can’t wait to get back playing with everybody again.

Play > Barnard Castle > Goff Richards> Penrith Town Band > Conductor Ian Butterworth

Today I’m showcasing Penrith Town Band in one of my favourite pieces for brass – Goff Richards’ Barnard Castle. It’s jolly and uplifting from the first bars, and there are some fine euphonium passages. I’m playing it today, Census day, to remind folk that now might not be the best day to head north for an eye test. In 2121, when the details are released, your descendants will know you weren’t at home!

*I’d forgotten the Trumpton Fire Brigade had a grand little band of their own. Barney McGrew really rocks those cymbals!