Names have been changed to protect the egos.

A Pre-Contest Cautionary Tale.

"On the Piste with "The Battys".

Picture the scene in the Batty household around November each year – faced with the prospect of a long, dark winter stretching ahead, a busy Christmas period playing endless hours of carols with the band before the inevitable gruelling rehearsal schedule leading up to the March Regional Qualifiers begins, Joan Batty starts to bend poor Dicky’s ear about her need for a holiday. In a scene repeated year after year, Dicky, longing for a quiet life, relents and books a family skiing holiday for the February half-term break.

In making this decision, Devil-May-Care Dicky risks the wrath of bandmaster and MD alike as he and Joan both occupy principal seats within the band and carefully planned rehearsal schedules are thrown into disarray. Enough mayhem you might say, but no! The senior Battys, it transpires, are accident prone to say the least when let loose on the piste. They do however have the good grace to take it in turns, year by year, to return with injuries – theirs is a caring sharing relationship after all.

The up-shot of all this is that in the past few years this esteemed old village band has suffered the embarrassment of its principal cornet player sitting on a rubber ring at the Regionals as Joan Batty nursed a fractured coccyx (tail-bone to the layman, whoever he might be), and Dicky returning from the slopes nursing a fractured wrist, giving him a pre-performance excuse for any shortcomings in the euph department.

And so to this year and it’s Joan’s ‘turn’ again as she appears at the first post-holiday rehearsal nursing a multi-coloured, swollen sausage where her thumb used to be! Her protestations of “It’ll be alright – it’s not broken” echo in her own ears as the Specialist threatens surgery to wire the displaced crush fracture into place! Granted a stay of execution, Joan is now rehearsing the toughest test-piece ever faced by the band with her valve hand sporting a thumb brace worthy of a Tom and Jerry cartoon!

So bands men, women, and Musical Directors – lend me your ears and heed my warning to beware the Ides of March and the perils of the February skiing holiday if you value your reputation and your rehearsal schedule. (Oh, and confiscate passports too if necessary!)

Torquay Tales – the Further Adventures of Dickie and Joan.

Friday Afternoon

It is a Friday afternoon in mid-March and an icy wind blows around the intrepid members of the village band as they congregate on the top o’ the hill in Michelmersh, awaiting the arrival of the charabanc that is to whisk them away to the sunnier climes of deepest Devon for a weekend of fun and frivolity. (Oh – and a bit of contesting too!). In a cost-cutting brainwave, Treasurer Dickie Batty has booked a coach to travel up from Torquay to transport the band back to its home-base, rather than use a local company. As the expected 2.00pm departure time comes and goes with no sign of the coach, our heroes feel the chill of fear that plans may have gone awry – or at least they would, were they not frozen to the very marrow by the arctic wind anyway! Through their hypothermic haze, it begins to dawn on everyone that Dickie himself is conspicuous in his absence, along with wife Joan. No freezing wait for the Battys – oh no! - they had pleaded work commitments and are warm and snug, preparing for a comfortable journey down in their own mode of transport. Hang on, what’s this? A message from Dickie – (Gawd bless the mobile phone!) – a replacement coach is on its way at last, the first having dropped its gearbox some miles away. We’re off!

Saturday Morning

Everyone looks surprisingly bright and up-for-it given that the hotel bar was drunk dry of Guinness last night in deference to St Patrick’s Day. After a hearty full English it’s a rehearsal and then time to kill before leaving for the venue. Rehearsal goes well, there is no repeat of the embarrassing: ‘I’ve got my thumb brace stuck in my cornet’ cry from Joan – she is sporting a rather nifty streamlined version in plastic today. Its full-on hedonism as spontaneous games of Scrabble, cards and Bop-It (?) break out around the hotel as news of the draw is awaited.

At last the call comes – THIRTEENTH – unlucky for some? Time will tell – it certainly gets the thumbs-up from Joan, but then what doesn’t at the moment?

Saturday Evening

All that playing nonsense is behind us now – we bottled it on stage and still came away with sixth place – a result as far as we are concerned! Given that our second euphonium suffered an equipment failure in mid-blow and our flugel player’s digital dexterity temporarily eluded him as he turned two pages instead of one, this ‘horn-led’ (Huh? – adjudicators, what do they know?) old band came through bloodied but un-bowed. Let the games commence!

Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to drink the bar dry and enjoy ourselves. Joan certainly is a woman on a mission – is it my imagination or is Dickie looking just a teeny bit nervous? The “Who Can Hold the Longest Note on a B-flat Bass” competition is entertaining to say the least – there are a lot of big breaths in the room tonight - but that’s enough fashion comment for now.

Dave the Deputy - (bass player and such a nice boy!) - takes his instrument on a train ride for a couple of stops up the line before the announcer tells him his train home has been cancelled. It’s a long but picturesque walk back from the railway station to the hotel carrying a bass. What some people will do to get out of a Sunday shift at Waitrose!

The decibel levels rise in direct correlation to the amount of alcohol consumed and atop all the noise is the instantly recognisable high-pitched squeal of Joan Batty as she enjoys glass after glass of “that really nice peach flavoured water”. Poor Joan – such an innocent – doesn’t know peach Schnapps when she tastes it! Falling back into a chair, her stamina finally runs out and a plaintive cry is heard from behind the curtain into which she has fallen:

“Dickie – I want to go to bed now……….”.

With a resigned shrug and just a flash of disappointment across his face as he realises that this is a cry for help rather than an invitaion, Dickie strides manfully across the room, sweeps Joan up and carries her away bravely risking the old Technicolor Yawn down his back.

Do you know how to do a Fireman’s lift?

Dickie does.

Do you know how to force down a fried breakfast when everyone is expecting you not to and to hold on to it until you have waved the coach out of sight?

Joan does.

Words submitted by Iona Large-Bottom, (March 2006)