Cuckoo Fair 2007
The day dawned bright and clear – the smell of anticipation in the air and the morris dancer costumes pressed and ready to go- but enough about Danny’s private life! Another Cuckoo Fair was upon us and it promised much.
Unusually for us we seemed to have a plan and the stall and playing arena was set up before the parade had even started. This boded well for the rest of the weekend!
The next job was the fanfare to herald in the handing over of the princessly duties. The three amigos strode confidently to the White Horse (not the first time I hear you cry) and the longest fanfare in the history of fanfares was played, while the gathered throng amused themselves in a variety of ways- having another birthday, writing a novel, cooking a three course dinner! Finally the handover was complete and our cornet chums rejoined the band. The fluid nature of the timings kicked in again with a large game of Chinese whispers as to when the procession was actually to assemble. Think of a number, double it, add 30 minutes and then take a large pinch of salt with that seems to work as a theory. Eventually the various organisations and worthies of Downton were assembled in the Bull car park and the procession set off. The band had obviously been in training with more than their beer arms, as by the time they reached Green Lane a wide chasm had opened up between us and the rest of the procession, with a few red-faced stragglers in olde worlde costume trying desperately to keep up.
Then we repaired to our usual place on the Borough and launched confidently into our summer programme of brass band classics and it sounded rather good. Normally we creak into action at this point of the year and dust down our repertoire, but this year we sounded pretty good from the off. Could this be because we had a star of the DVD world Mr You Tube himself, the Gazmeister, on solo cornet? The training band provided great entertainment as well and also allowed the senior band to sample the delights of the local hostelries/fudge stalls/balloon sellers. Thank you to them for some excellent work!
Sunday came strangely after Saturday and the Cuckoo Fair service was here again. This is usually where we undo all the good work of the day before and this year was no exception. Some of the hymns were obviously not suited to a brass band treatment but we soldiered on clinging to the hope that eventually we would get to the end with some of our reputation intact. We still had the concert in the evening and it looked like it was going to be a classic!
The concert audience trickled in with the usual stalwarts and a fair smattering of concessionary chums- £2 what a bargain! The band mascot was also eager to hear that the band had maintained their standards and had put on an especially cute shirt to revel in the muso atmosphere. The concert started loud and proud and continued in the same vein for the whole evening except perhaps the Minstrel Boy who seemed to initially lose his way. Some of the playing was really exceptional – great solo Mr Chiverton! It was a very sad day in one respect because John Collar chose this moment to hang up his Eb bass and retire gracefully. He was presented with a tankard bearing the band’s thanks. A true banding gent who will be sorely missed but we hope will make a welcome return on a regular basis. We also send our love to Margaret who has been a great band supporter over the years.
After the concert we repaired to our spiritual home – the White Horse where our newly appointed pintsize social sec had organised a band meal in conjunction with our esteemed vice president Mr Paul Whitburn. It was really great to all get together at the end of a busy weekend. Everybody was suspiciously well behaved even Two Gallons Turnbull was fairly abstemious. Most disappointing for my amusing write up!
All in all another fine banding weekend with the inevitable highs lows and bizarre moments. Thank you once again to our fine deps -
Brad and Katie
Ian and Alison
Di and son Andy
See you at the New Forest Show!