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The earliest pictures of the band, from the last years of the 19th century, show 4 cornets, 3 horns, euphonium, bass, baritone and drums. The band was still practising in the Sunday school room when Thomas Parsons, nephew of Tom and father of Wilf, joined in 1899 at the age of 11.

Rumour has it that life in the band was not all sweetness and roses, with minor squabbles breaking out, members leaving and rejoining. Membership probably dropping to around 5 at one stage, and it may have been that the ban on alcohol was beginning to play its part. It is believed that in 1908 Thomas Parsons and Tom Topp approached the rector - still Mr Gore-Browne, of course. There was already a certain amount of hypocrisy creeping in, and the two bandsmen asked him to agree to the temperance restriction being lifted. "If we are to keep it a temperance band, we shan't have a band much longer", said Tom Topp.

It seems that the rector initially agreed to the members being able to drink when not on band duty, and later the restriction was dropped completely - some say there was a ceremony when the word "temperance" was rubbed off the band's big drum.

When the first world war began, many bandsmen were quick to answer the call to arms. The war memorial in Michelmersh Church records ten local victims. One of them, Walter "Charlie" Compton, who was a cornet player with the band, had moved to the village from Broad Chalke near Salisbury when he married a local girl. The band found it hard to keep going during the war years, although it was now under a new bandmaster, Tom Topp. Like others of his day, he managed to conduct and play his cornet at the same time, to help keep numbers up.

One winter's night during the war years, Tom's two sons Stan and Ern were at home with nothing to do when Tom told them: "I'll go and get three of the band instruments and teach you to play them - then you'll have something to do.". He wrote out scales and taught the lads to play hymns and waltzes, making them practice over and over until they got the notes right.

When the war ended, Tom Topp called a meeting to see if he could reform the band. Several members had not returned to the village for various reasons, and only six men turned up - Tom himself, Thomas Parsons, Harry Tongs, George Jacobs, Bert Elcock and Harry Head. But they decided to go ahead. Stan and Ern soon swelled the numbers to eight, and a couple of weeks later Jack Pearce joined them.

The band's first appearance in public after the was was on Rogation Sunday in 1920 when it played on the old cricket pitch close to the church, after the service. Bill Morgan, who lived in Michelmersh, but played in Lockerley band, strengthened the group to 10 players. The Romsey Advertiser reported that the rector, now the Rev. William Hawksley, congratulated his brothers of the band. Over the next few years Tom Topp worked hard at recruiting likely young men from the village into the band, and some of them were to remain members for half a century.