Barton Town Band

Although I will always think of Brigg Town Band as my banding foundation stone, it was with Barton Town Band that I really started my musical education.  Under the expert eye of Stewart Bramwell Stunnell I was nurtured and encouraged and it was in Barton that I truly recognised a desire to make music my career (a desire that, sadly, was not to come to fruition).

So it is with great pleasure that I have been following the recent, meteoric rise of Barton Town Band under the masterful leadership of Mark Benthman and Richard Evans.  After 30 years in the contesting wilderness, the last five years have brought one success after another in the North of England Regional Contest and at the Regional Finals in Harrogate:

Year       Contest           Section         Position

2006      Regional              4                  1
2006      Finals                  4                  6
2007      Regional              3                  1
2007      Finals                  3                  2
2008      Regional              2                  1
2008      Finals                  2                  3
2009      Regional              1                  2
2009      Finals                  1                  2
2010      Regional              1                  1

This is a remarkable performance by any strandards and, surely, the band must be promoted into the Championship Section for 2011.

Well done to everyone involved and a particular mention to Stuart Clark who was playing bass trombone before I even joined the band and who this year picked up the Best Trombone prize.  Stuart, his brother Phil and I were the Barton trombone section in the early 1970s.  I recall playing with them The Bold Gendarmes at a contest in Cleethorpes as well as more than a few performances of the Frank Bryce favourite, Trombola.  (Phil, by the way, proved to be the most gifted of the three of us and played for some time with the Black Dyke Mills Band.)