(Taken from "Beyond the Brass", a booklet produced for the band in 1986 by Gordon Griffiths)

There is no record of the day the Michelmersh band first played together, but its first anniversary is reported in the Salisbury and Winchester Journal for Saturday, November 19, 1887. The report says that on Wednesday about 29 persons, members of the band and their friends, attended a tea in the Sunday school room. A Mr. Page took the chair, "congratulating the band on the progress it had made since its formation and impressing the necessity of unity in this as in everything if they wished the band to be a success". He also "eulogised" the kindness of the rector and his wife, who had done so much for the members.

This gives some credence to the long held belief that the Rector of Michelmersh, the Rev. Barrington Gore-Browne, was the band's benefactor. The story goes that the rector's coachmen Harry Parsons, and his brother Tom Parsons and Tom Topp, who worked together as bricklayers, were among a group of local men who approached the rector, asking for a loan to buy instruments and set up the band.

Mr. Gore-Browne was a redoubtable figure. He was rector for 29 years and had become an honorary canon of Winchester Cathedral by the time he retired in 1913 because of ill health. He was a leading member of the Church of England Temperance Society locally, regularly preaching about the evils of alcohol and the need for children to be shielded from them.

The rector apparently agreed to the men's request - on condition that they formed a temperance band. The bandsmen held their first practices in the Sunday school room at the rectory, the house now known as Michelmersh Court, and it seems likely that members of other bands in Romsey and nearby villages helped them learn to play their instruments.

The brass band made its debut at a temperance society tea and concert in the rectory grounds on June 6, 1887. Two weeks later the band was playing at the village's celebrations to mark the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria's reign.

It must have been about this time that Tom Parsons became the first bandmaster, although he was only 18 years old. He had joined the church choir at eight, left school at 11, married at 25, and left Michelmersh at 40 to take over Malthouse Farm, Braishfield. He was a bricklayer and eventually had his own business, building five bungalows at Lower Street which older folk still call Parson's Town.

In those days and until the 1930s fetes, flower shows and similar were held midweek. Bandsmen who were docked wages for taking time off were paid out of the engagement fee. It is said that Tom Parsons was once seen walking home one afternoon with his scythe over his shoulder. When someone asked what he was doing, he said the band had an engagement, adding "My boss told me I shall lose my job if I go out with the band - but I'm still going."