One Beautiful Summer

One Beautiful Summer One Beautiful Summer

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ONE BEAUTIFUL SUMMER Written for: Executive Producer: Tom Hanks Narrator: Ray Liotta Lead role as 76-year-old Arthur Delamont - Tom Hanks To be filmed entirely in the UK and on location in Europe Producer/Director: Paul Greengrass The story shines a light on the British music industry from brass band, to vaudeville, to big band, to the Beatles.

This is a movie treatment of a 1968, a two-and-a-half-month tour of England and Europe by 76-year-old Arthur Delamont and his Vancouver Kitsilano Boys Band. It is both poignant and bittersweet as it looks at coming of age, the end of life, and the education of youth. It is also about remembering the past so you can plan for the future. All the characters are affected by one or the other, and no one more so than Arthur Delamont, who is thinking about quitting his band and retiring after he returns. He feels City Council doesn’t care about the arts in Vancouver and, more specifically, all he has achieved over the past forty years. “Who has done more to promote the city of Vancouver abroad over the past decades than me,” he asks? When he approached City Council for funds for this trip, they gave him one thousand dollars, barely enough to cover the airfare for one boy, not 39 boys and one girl.

She loves you ya, ya, ya She loves you ya, ya, ya, And a love like that, You know it can’t be bad.

One Beautiful Summer

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The Nelsen house, 388 East 45th Avenue. June 15, 1968. My family is getting ready to take me, their oldest son, to the airport.

You think you’ve lost your love Well, I saw her yesterday It’s you she’s thinking of And she told me what to say “Hurry Chris. We don’t want to be late. You know how Mr. Delamont is regarding punctuality and we still have to pick up Keith and his mom,” yells my mother down the basement stairs to my bedroom. “We’ll see you in the car.”

She says she loves you And you know that can’t be bad Yes, she loves you And you know you should be glad I rush upstairs and into the living room looking for something with my carry-on bag in one hand. I am dressed in a blue blazer with grey slacks and have on a white shirt and a long maroon necktie.

“Where’s the music coming from,” I yell? I finally see what I am searching for and pick up a pocket size transistor radio, look at it, smile, put it into my blazer pocket and rush

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out the front door and down the stairs.

She said you hurt her so She almost lost her mind But now she said she knows You’re not the hurting kind “Say hi to the Beatles for me,” yells my twelve-year-old, next-door neighbour Evelyn who is sitting on the porch listening to her radio.

“Who are the Beatles,” I ask?

“You’ll find out,” Evelyn says as I rush to the family car parked on the street and jump in the back seat. The car pulls away and goes around the corner.

She says she loves you And you know that can’t be bad Yes, she loves you And you know you should be glad, ooh Everyone is already there inside the Vancouver International Airport when Keith and I arrive, followed shortly by my mother, father and brother Ken. All 39 of us boys and one girl, aged 12 to twenty, all dressed the same. It’s good publicity to have one girl with 39 boys. Each has one piece of luggage, a carry-on bag, and their musical instrument to be checked in before departure. Mr. Delamont, our leader, is holding a press conference with a reporter from the local newspaper, the Vancouver Sun, and he isn’t too happy.

“I think this may be my last trip with my boys,” he says to the reporter. “When I approached City Hall for a donation for this trip, my tenth in all, they only gave me one thousand dollars. Why that barely covers the cost of the airline fare for one boy to travel to Europe for two and a half months these days. My efforts are not appreciated here at home, so I am seriously thinking of quitting the band after this trip,” adds a solemn-looking Mr. D. “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Delamont,” says the reporter. “I hope that isn’t so,” he adds as Delamont fumes and walks away, joining his boys.

“Don’t let Wally go into any pubs in England,” one of the boys’ guardians Al Lehtonen aka Wally, to all. “He has been brought up with good Christian values,” she adds. Mr. D continues to walk past solemnly.

“Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen,” the reporter says, turning to a cameraman. “Arthur Delamont, who has led his Kitsilano Boys Band here in Vancouver for forty years, is seriously thinking of calling it quits due to a lack of support from government officials for the arts in Vancouver. You heard him in his own words; he feels that he and his band aren’t appreciated here at home. We’ll just have to hope he has a change of heart because the Kitsilano Boys Band has been a fixture in the community since 1928, further back than I can remember. They’re always playing somewhere in town at openings, in parks and have won so many trophies, I doubt they even know how many.

It will be a sad day for the arts in Vancouver if he really does what he says. But I

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guess, for now, we will just all have to wait and see how he feels when he gets back from this, his tenth European tour.”

photo missing

We boys head out to the plane while our parents wave goodbye through a large picture window at the back of the airport. Mr. Delamont is the last to leave, as he wants to be sure every boy is ahead of him. All 39 of us pause in front of the plane for a group photo as well as the band’s manager Dave Mackenzie, an old boy from the ‘62 trip, three chaperones Mr. and Mrs. Pettie and Mrs. Pattison, the wife of local businessman Jim Pattison whose 12-year-old son Jimmy plays in the band and the Inman family who has a 14-year-old son Bill playing. The Inmans are going on their own tour of Europe and will meet up with the band in various places.

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It is a ten-hour flight to London. After getting some much-needed rest, everyone is woken up by Mr. D playing taps on his trumpet somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean.

Woolwich, London “So here we are, our first night in London,” I say to Keith in a room we are sharing in a youth hostel in Woolwich, a working-class district of London.

“Come on. Let’s go out and find a pub,” says nineteen-year-old Keith.

Inside a working-class pub right out of a D.H. Lawrence novel The boys are sitting at a small table, in a very sparsely decorated pub full of workingclass men, with two big glasses of stout in front of them.

“What do you think,” asks Keith.”

“I love it,” I reply. “Not the stout.”

Back in our room at the youth hostel We are both in bed, and I turn on my transistor radio.

“This is the pirate radio station Caroline broadcasting to you off Harwick in the English Channel in international waters outside the three-mile limit. For our next selection, I would like to play for you the Beatles recording of Can’t Buy Me, Love. I’m disc jockey, Chris Moore.”

Can’t buy me love, oh Love, oh Can’t buy me love, oh I’ll buy you a diamond ring, my friend If it makes you feel all right I’ll get you anything my friend

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If it makes you feel all right The following day on the street in front of our youth hostel “Wally, go into that pub over there and get me an orange soda,” says Mr. D, as he and us boys gather. “You have today and the next day, free boys. You should all go to the museums and take in the sights. We won’t be playing in London. Once we leave, though, you will all be pretty busy. There will also be extra rehearsals for the Kerkrade Festival and lots of marching practice, so enjoy yourself for the next couple of days. You older boys, be sure and look after the younger boys.”

Later in the afternoon, Mr. D is seen walking by himself along a London street. He comes to a big impressive building and reads the plaque. ‘BBC Studios’ He stands there daydreaming for the longest time (flashback).

1953 Kits Boy’s Band Trip, London, BBC Studios When the boys arrive in London, Stocky, their manager, is again there to greet them.

He has organized the 1953 trip as well as their four previous trips - still wearing his striped morning suit, his bowler hat, and carrying his umbrella – he has all the characteristics of gentleman-managers and executives of the day in London’s ‘city.’

On June 13, in a hushed BBC studio in Old London Towne, conductor Arthur Delamont strikes the downbeat on twelve solid weeks of music which reach into every corner of the United Kingdom - straight from the heart of Vancouver. For that day, the trumpets of the Kitsilano Boys’ Band sound the opening bar of what is to be a three-month, sevenday-a-week, two-show-a-day tour of the United Kingdom. When the band sailed from Montreal on June 3, it marked the fifth crossing of this group of teenage ambassadors of goodwill and good music. It is another triumphant milestone in the life of 61-yearold Arthur Delamont, who dreamed a dream 27 years previous when, with boundless energy, he transformed it into a living monument to his vision.

During a rehearsal for the evening’s BBC performance, the producer, Peter Duncan, says to the star of the show, Irene Dunne, “Cover your ears because the opening fanfare will be very brilliant.” She does, but she takes her hands off for a moment and then quickly puts them back. She looks over towards Peter in the control booth, who gives a thumbs-up signal to her.

“The effect was electrifying,” she says to him afterwards. While the boys are rehearsing, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis walk in. They are scheduled to be on the program as well. When the boys have finished, Jerry hams it up with Dean for a few moments, especially for the boys, who have all gathered around them like bees to honey.

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“Those were the days,” says Delamont, and he walks off.

Back at the youth hostel, he runs into Dave.

“Were you able to get us any press coverage in the papers,” Mr. D asks Dave?

“I’m afraid not. The reporter said there were too many world events happening that they needed to cover.”

“World events,” shouts Delamont. “That’s ridiculous.”

That night as he is getting into bed.

“Too many world events, they say. Why the biggest event of this century didn’t stop us from getting press coverage,” Delamont says and goes to sleep.

June 1939 Winnipeg, A Boy With A Horn

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The following article appeared in The South-East Corner (a Winnipeg newspaper); it was written by Harris Turner in June 1939, the day after the boys played in Winnipeg.

I met a lad who plays a horn in a band. Anybody who ever played any kind of horn in any band always aroused my envy, but this young fellow played a slide-trombone, which is the most enviable of all musical weapons, and he played it in the Kitsilano Boys’ Band, which, according to the Century of Progress Exhibition, is the best boys’ band in the world. This boy had a uniform that would make a peacock look like a dirty, grey sock. Why was I deprived of the privilege of learning to play the slide trombone? Why didn’t somebody handcuff me to a slide trombone and refuse me food and sleep until I learned to play it? Why don’t they make slide trombone playing compulsory in public schools and give slide-trombones away with subscriptions to the Western Producer instead of handing out carving knives and aprons?

You may not know that the Kitsilano Boys’ Band comes from Vancouver. Every year or two, it comes from Vancouver to startle the Boys’ Band universe with its magnificent uniform and its still more magnificent musical accomplishments. It played in Kamloops, in Calgary, in Regina, in Winnipeg, in Kenora, in Fort William and in Sudbury. It is playing in Toronto today, and in a day or two, it will play at the World’s Fair in New York, and then it is going to play in Montreal. From Montreal, on June 30, it sails on the Duchess of Bedford for England, and on the other side of the Atlantic, it is playing in London, and places in Europe aware metal can be used in the manufacture of slide-trombones and cornets besides the production of guns and grenades.

This catalogue of towns is not printed as an advertisement but to amplify the grounds for envy. This lad, with his slide-trombone, will get to places where few young lads without trombones can go. Behind the thrusting loop of his polished horn, he will strut down avenues and streets cleared for his passage as though the King were coming.

He will blow the works of the world’s great composers through his musical instrument in historic halls where chancellors have made great speeches and prima-donnas have thrilled vast audiences.

Because of his ability to decipher a few black dots on a piece of paper and know that they mean that the sliding valve on his horn must be in a specific, definite position and his mouth puckered in a certain particular way, he can travel the globe. As if his grandfather had owned a distillery or his bachelor uncle had discovered a gold mine in Australia.

They will probably see the King --- these forty-eight Vancouver high school lads, with no passports except their trombones, their clarinets, their drums, their cornets, their bass-horns, their saxophones, their oboes, their altos, their French horns and their capes of royal blue with the crimson satin lining. You will meet people who will tell you that the radio has killed individual initiative in the musical business and that the mechanical music of our time has ruined what was once a noble art, and that band music

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is out of date, and there is no use learning to play a slide-trombone or a bagpipe. Those people are mistaken. If you are an excellent horn-blower, you can still see the world over the bell-mouth of a tuneful tube of brass. There is one ground for complaint about the business. This Kitsilano Boys’ Band may cause considerable pleasure by its music, but it has set a million volts of envy skidding through the minds and hearts of countless thousands of Canadian boys.

1968 Two days later A touring bus can be seen rolling along a busy highway in the south of England. A sign reads Basingstoke, and the bus turns towards Basingstoke.

The band performs a concert on stage for the locals that night in the Basingstoke Town Hall. After the show and all have left, Mr. D comes out of the hall alone.

“Is this your first trip to England, guv,” asks a local?

“No. I’ve been here a few times,” Mr. D replies and walks away.

In the rooming house where he stays “Is this my first trip to England,” Sneers Delamont as he gets into a bed at the local rooming house where Dave Mackenzie has found him a room for the night. Soon, he falls into a deep sleep.

July 13, 1934, Liverpool, England

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“Did you wonder if you would ever make it back to England, Arthur,” asks Garfield White, the band’s manager, on the first trip he makes to England with his boys in the summer of 1934? They’re standing on the deck of the Duchess of Athol as it approaches Liverpool.

“No, never, Garfield. I always knew I would be back one day,” replies Arthur.

“You have done well with your boys. You marched them through the provincial, national and world band championships with ease,” recalls Garfield.

“Well, as I said to Dallas Richards in Chicago last summer, after we won the Junior Band Championship of the World at Soldiers Field when he asked, ‘What’s next, Mr. Delamont?’

“What did you say?”

“Why England, of course!”

Two hours later The ship is seen docking in Liverpool, and two men are walking up the gangplank to meet Mr. Delamont and Garfield White.

“Hello, Mr. Delamont. My name is MacAdam. I am the Agent-General for British Columbia here in the UK,” he says, shaking their hands.

“And I am Cameron Stockwell of the L.J. Sharpe Concert Booking Agency in London. I will be travelling with you making your arrangements. Everyone calls me Stocky.”

“I see you brought lots of press with you,” notices Garfield. “That’s always good.” The boys pose for several photos both on the ship and on the dock.

“Follow me, gentlemen. Hickie, Borman and Grant will be handling your transportation, and they will see you get from the dock to the railway station,” says Stocky. “There, you will board the LMS train for Manchester, which departs at 3:00 and arrives one-half hour later,” Stocky adds. “I’ve booked you to play three numbers at the 14th annual July British Brass Band Festival at Belle Vue Amusement Park.”

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“You aren’t booked to play in the festival,” assures Garfield. “Just to play three numbers before the prize giving at 7:00 pm.”

At the rooming house where they stay “What time do you want to get knocked up,” the landlady of the Foley Commercial House, which is really a rooming house, asks Mr. D when their bus arrives at their lodgings. “The knocker-up man will be around at eight in the morning.”

Back at Belle Vue that evening.

The boys march out onto a dirt track speedway as guests of the management. There are over 21,000 people in attendance, and the boys meet with a great ovation. They play their three numbers and are so warmly received, they play five more. Even then, the audience wants them to play on. The audience is told to come back the following afternoon to hear the boys again.

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The following day, the boys play a two hour afternoon concert in a big ballroom and then an evening concert for another two hours. The evening concert is attended by two thousand people.

1968, back on the road to Dartmouth “So what is Darmouth like,” asks Rob Arseneau to another boy on board their tour bus as they make their way along a tree-covered country road headed for the seaside town of Dartmouth in the South West of England?

Soon, the bus arrives at the lower ferry and Dartmouth can be seen in the distance.

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On the other side of the river “Go up the main road to the top, above the town,” Dave Mackenzie tells Colin, our bus driver. “We are going to march down the main road into town, and let everyone know we have arrived.”

Our bus travels up the main road of Dartmouth, and people on the street can be seen pointing and smiling.

“I don’t think you need to worry about them knowing you are here,” says Colin.

“They’ve been waiting for you.”

“The boys are back,” a girl on the street yells to her friends.

At the top of the hill The band can be heard playing Georgy Girl in the distance and then we come into view, marching side by side down the street into town. People come out of their houses and stores to say hello. In the middle of us boys is Arthur playing his trumpet along with his boys.

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When we arrive at the bottom of the main road, just past the Butterwalk, we turn to the right and fall into concert formation in front of the boat quay. There, we play several pop tunes as people gather around to listen. Mr. Delamont goes over to the crowd and starts to dance with one lady.

“Don’t you have to conduct,” she asks, somewhat startled?

“They’ve played them all a hundred times,” he gushes and carries on dancing with the lady. Other ladies seize the moment and cut in, wanting to dance with the maestro.

Mr. D is quite handsome even at 76, with his white hair, tanned face (he spends Christmas in Hawaii) and has a beautiful smile.

He sees a young boy standing to his right, grabs his arm and brings him over to the front of the band.

“What is your name, young man,” he asks?

“David Bailey, sir.”

“How old are you, David Bailey?”

“I’m 8, sir.”

“Have you ever conducted a band?”

“No, sir.”

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“It’s easy. Just wave your arms back and forward like I do.” He gives the baton to the boy, and the boy has the time of his life.”

When the band stops, Mr. D asks the boy, “Do you play a musical instrument?”

“No, sir, but I sing.”

“Well, you should go into the theatre. They need bright boys like you who can sing and do what they’re told to do.”

“Maybe I will, sir, thanks,” the young boy runs back to the crowd.

That evening, the band plays a concert in the bandstand in the park next to the boat quay. It is a packed house. In between numbers, Mr. D always talks to the audience.

“I thought this was a boy’s band,” he asks the audience looking bewildered? “It says on the sign over their 39 boys.” He turns and looks, pointing at the back row. “If you look at the drummers in the back, they all have long hair. They look like girls to me.”

The audience laughs, and the boys give out a moan.

“It’s the sixties, Mr. D,” one of the drummers yells out.

“Times have changed, that’s for sure,” he sighs. “It doesn’t really matter,” he says.

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“They’re all good boys. All my boys are good. This is my tenth trip to the old country.

How many knew that?” No hands go up, and then someone yells, “To Dartmouth?”

“No. Not to Dartmouth. My tenth trip to England with my boys. This is our third trip to Dartmouth. The boys like Dartmouth because everyone is so friendly. But you girls better watch out. Some of them have girlfriends in every town you know.” The boys moan again. “I guess I better not say anymore. This next number I want to play is one of the classics by Mozart. Boys this age can’t play the masters, but they try. So here it is, The Magic Flute.”

The boys see lots of local girls in the audience, and they see the boys.

After the concert, in front of the hall where the boys are billeted.

What would you think if I sang out of tune?

Would you stand up and walk out on me?

Lend me your ears, and I’ll sing you a song And I’ll try not to sing out of key The boys can be seen coming out of the hall. There are lots of local girls waiting outside. The boys go off in groups left and right. The girls follow in groups.

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends Inside a local bar called the Boatel, Keith and I, along with several other boys, Barry who brought along his accordovox, Bruce his brother, a drummer, and an assortment of saxes, trumpets, and trombones are the Kits dance band, play for a dance. The music is fast and the arrangements the latest James Last which I have brought along. One of the boys, Wayne, another drummer, is dressed up as Tiny Tim, complete with ukulele, paisley sports coat and long hair. He sings, Tip, Toe Through The Tulips, to the crowds’ delight.

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The next day on the street The bubbliest personality we boys meet in Dartmouth is Mrs. Tucker. She is the lady Mr. D danced with at the boat float. Every time Mr. D sees her in the crowd, he goes over and starts dancing with her, and she is only too happy to oblige. Her husband is the opposite, very prim and proper. He is a police constable. Yet at the end of the trip, one boy climbs upon another boy and knocks his Bobbie hat off, and it rolls down the hill. Another boy picks it up and runs off with it, and he lets them get away with it so he can’t be too prim and proper. They have a daughter the same age as the boys, Kay. She works in a bank. One of the boys, John, is quite smitten with her and drops by the bank every day at 3:00 pm when she finishes work, they go off together. For years after the trip, they keep in touch even though they both marry someone else. John still returns every summer to Dartmouth, long after Kay’s husband dies.

John and Kay on the right

Jane Baker is one of the Fabulous Baker Sisters. All the boys like Jane, although she only has eyes for one. Things don’t go so well, and this one boy, Bruce, the drummer, seems to lose interest in her almost right from the start. The other boys don’t make a move on her, thinking he will come to his senses, but he never does, leaving Jane always pining on the sidelines, despite her beauty and out-going personality. When Carnival week is over, Jane tells me her sister, Maria, will be back from Italy in August, and she wants to introduce her to me. I like Jane so I think if she’s half as lovely as Jane, I can’t lose and I turn out to be right.

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We meet Jeannie Deacon at the Boatel. She is one of the locals, and she strikes up a relationship with another drummer, Don. Jeannie is lots of fun and full of energy, and everyone likes her as well.

Somehow and somewhere in town, Keith and I meet the Baillie girls, Maggi and Janet. Maggie is the oldest, the same age as Keith. Janet’s birthday we discover is the same day as mine, only she is one year younger. In my youth and naivety, I see it as a great revelation from beyond while it is merely a coincidence. It was the same thing as when I received a thank you note from Prince Charles one year. I had written him wishing him a happy birthday. I received an official letter with a royal seal from some lady in waiting for the queen. Boy, I thought I was unique. I find out later, it is her job.

The Baillie girls live at 35 Townstal Road. Keith and I walk them home each night, taking different routes. There seems to be no end to the narrow streets and lanes which we all love to explore.

In Penny Lane, there is a barber showing photographs Of every head he’s had the pleasure to know And all the people that come and go Stop and say hello On the corner is a banker with a motorcar And little children laugh at him behind his back And the banker never wears a mac in the pouring rain Very strange Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes Wet beneath the blue suburban skies I sit and meanwhile back in We always come back down from the Baillie house through the graveyard and read the inscriptions on the tombstones, which are really old.

Their father’s name is Bill. We think that is hilarious, and we always think of the Baillies whenever we play the tune Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey. They are lovely girls, and we have lots of fun together. They eventually came to Vancouver in 1969 after Canada’s immigration laws opened up in 1968 to let in qualified nannies and caregivers. They come as nannies. They only stayed for one year because they hadn’t realized the boys lived all over Metro Vancouver and even further and never saw each other at home, except at band practice. I don’t think they saw any of the boys, but I and I didn’t have much time to spend with them, what with playing in a band at the Coach House Motor Inn in North Vancouver on Friday and Saturday evenings and going to college in the weekdays. Besides, they are on call 24-7 as nannies for the people they work for, so they don’t have much free time.

All the girls in Dartmouth hope to marry an officer from the Dartmouth Royal Naval

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College. Two of the girls we meet do a few years later. If they can’t marry a British officer, then other ships always come into Dartmouth. Our main competition for girls is these blond-haired sailors that show up in July. The Swedish Navy is in town. We hope they won’t still be there in August when we return, and they aren’t.

Our routine in Dartmouth is always the same. We go out and play what we call a junk music concert in the morning. The young boys work the crowd selling postcards. Then, we go back to the hall where we stay and divide the spoils. We make enough money to pay for each boy’s lunch and dinner, usually about two shillings sixpence a meal. Sometimes more if it is a good crowd. Mr. D did this all over England and Europe to offset expenses on his trips.

Then, we have the afternoon free as long as we are back in time for a two o’clock concert in the park. After the concert, we are free again to eat dinner as long as we are back at the bandstand for a seven o’clock show. We can buy fish and chips for two shillings sixpence. This is before fish and chips become so commercialized. The chippy has his own shop. The fish and chips come wrapped in newspaper with a can of pop. We smother them in salt, vinegar and catsup and go and sit by the riverside and enjoy our dinner. Three concerts a day is typical, and we always march to each show from the hall and back. We all love Dartmouth. Tom Walker remembers: “I went into the Dartmouth Arms and bought a beer, then went and sat down on the embankment and stared out over the river and thought, there isn’t anywhere in the

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world I would rather be.”

The hall where we boys stay is modest, to say the least, but it is free. Every morning at 6:00 am, the Beatles Yellow Submarine mysteriously plays on the jukebox.

We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine

I come back one afternoon to get something, and Mr. D is sitting at a table in the back of the hall working on his music. He constantly is rewriting parts if he feels they are too weak in certain sections. I usually wind up reinforcing a lot of the trumpet parts on tenor sax, which is fine by me. I don’t say anything to him because he is staring off into the distance, concentrating on the music, I guess. We boys always know when not to bother the old man.

“Not much to look at,” Mr. D exclaims, looking around at his surroundings and starting to daydream again.” Things were sure different forty years ago.”

July 15, 1934

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The boys are up early the following day, following their day at Belle Vue. It is a 225mile train ride to London, and it takes three hours and fifteen minutes, with no stops.

The boys are somewhat surprised at the dress of the station masters who wear top hats and entire morning dress, looking more like bridegrooms than railway officials.

After going to the Mills Hotel in London, the boys are accorded a reception at Grosvenor House by the acting agent-general for British Columbia, Mr. MacAdam and his wife.

In a brief address, the High Commissioner for Canada in London, Mr. Howard Ferguson, refers to the boys as “Canada’s cultural pioneers,” whose performance in the Old Country will, he feels, bring to the people here a new vision of the Dominion.

After the reception at Grosvenor House, the boys are off to Broadcasting House, where they broadcast all over the British Isles on BBC. While on route to the studio, one of the lifts (elevators) gets stuck between floors. Twenty boys are stuck for twenty minutes before they can open a side door to let them out. They return afterwards for dinner at their hotel and then have the rest of the evening free to explore London.

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On July 17 They are conveyed to the Tower of London at noon, where they march to the main gates to be received by Lieutenant-Col. W.F.G. Farrell, Resident Constable of the Tower.

A massive crowd of people then here the boys play an hour’s program in the moat.

Luncheon is served in the Toc H Club House and then commences an exciting afternoon when the boys are given a thorough tour of the Tower of London by one of the chief Beefeaters or Warders. They record “Sousa’s Triumphal, “The Retreat of the Vanished Army,” and “Orpheus” at the Regal-Zonophone Gramophone Co. One of the boys, Clif Bryson, writes the following home: “A highlight of the trip is playing in the moat at the Tower of London. We played the Tiger Rag. The next day in the papers, the headlines read, Tiger in the Moat!”

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The evening is free for the boys to roam around by themselves, but they are to meet at midnight to go over to the BBC to broadcast a half-hour program to the British Empire. The next day, July 18, after breakfast, the boys are conveyed to the Parliament Buildings, where they are met by Sir Samuel Chapman, MP for South Edinburgh, who gives them a detailed tour. The boys are introduced to members of the House, who are all eager to meet the boys, saying a few words of welcome and good luck. Two of the boys, Cliff Wood and Norman Pearson, give short speeches from the Box in the House of Commons, and the boys are all allowed to vote to see how the process is done.

After lunch, the boys make a moving picture for Pathe Film Company in their studio.

Their image is shown all over the British Empire and brings further honour and publicity to Vancouver.

On July 19, they all board a rented touring bus and head into the countryside. Their first concert, they stopped in Torquay in the southwest of England. In Torquay, the fleet is in, so it acts as a counter-attraction to the boys. They play a concert in the Pavilion in the afternoon to a huge crowd. Torquay is a millionaire’s playground, so the boys leave

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for Plymouth on the 6:30 train as it is too expensive to stay there overnight. In Plymouth, the boys lodge at the YMCA. The brass section has a practice the following day.

The boys are really enjoying themselves touring England.

“Mr. D, Mr. D, wake up,” nudges Dave Mackenzie.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” replies Delamont. Mr. D looks up and sees Dave and Colin, their bus driver standing beside him.

“Do you want to come with us to Bugle,” asks Dave? “Colin says he can get us there and back in lots of time for the evening concert.”

“No. I’ve been to Bugle. I told you, I don’t want to go anywhere I have already been.”

“Yes. I know. But this is just to visit and to listen to the bands. The contest you played in, in 1934 is being held right now.”

“No. I’ve got music to finish for tonight’s concert,” replies Mr. D. “Thanks anyway. But no thanks.”

“Okay. But don’t say you weren’t asked,” repeats Dave as the two leave Delamont all alone again.

“Bugle. I haven’t heard that name in years. Boy, that was something,” he thinks, sitting back in his chair, looking content and gleaning like a child. He starts to daydream again.

July 21, 1934, Bugle, Cornwall “When Frank Wright, the noted adjudicator, steps from the train the setting, glowing under the rays of glorious sun, is in itself complete compensation for the tedium of his all-night journey from Lancashire. It is Bugle’s Gala Day, for the West of England band championships are decided during the afternoon. One can feel the enthusiasm and vitality in the atmosphere. Bandsmen in their gaily coloured uniforms are everywhere, and one can gather from the snatches of conversation that the one topic is: “WHO WILL WIN?” (The Cornwall Guardian, July 26, 1934) A local newspaper reporter writes the following article: The day dawned ominously for the Festival. When all awake to see rain greyly falling from skies uniformly grey, the hearts of those doomed to go to the Festival are heavy indeed. It seems, in prospect, as if the revival is to be condemned by the weather. But there is magic in the air. Before mid-morning, the grey clouds begin to lift. Magnificent, lofty cumulus clouds sail across the blue, and for the whole Festival, the sun burns down and scorches all as they sit or stand listening to the bands’ playing. They are not doomed after all; fears are fortunately liars, and their initial hopes are anything but dupes. For even listening is made hot work! What then must the heat be like for the competing bandsmen? One of the St. Dennis bandsmen said that he has never known playing to be hotter work when he is having a late tea, just before seven. How refreshing the trees

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look parched though they are, by contrast with the arid white china clay cones (vast mounds of clay used for English pottery seen nearby).

Arthur’s boys, however, do not seem to mind the heat. They go about in two’s and three’s, eating innumerable ices and resting in whatever shade they can find, before and after their playing. After all, they are world champions in their class, gaining their world championship at the mammoth brass band contest in Chicago. They have come to Bugle to compete in the only British competition they have ever entered due to the perspicacity of Mr. F.J.P. Richards, the zealous honorary secretary of the Festival. He is the presiding genius of the occasion as one might well describe him, who, when he heard earlier in the year that the boys were coming to England, snapped them up for his Festival. It is the first time any overseas band has competed at the West of England Festival, and naturally, Bugle and the four thousand people who hear them give the Kitsilano Boys a rousing Cornish welcome.

The boys, whose ages range from eleven to nineteen, add significantly to the picturesqueness of the scenes. The sight of some of them under the trees near the marquee makes one-half fancy that one is at some Continental fete Galante. Their tightish-fitting black trousers with a broad red stripe, white silk shirts and flowing capes with bright red sides and black backs and black and red Glengarry caps worn at an angle are pretty dashing.

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Ignorant of school holiday arrangements in Canada, I ask the Boys how their younger fellows in the band manage for education while in England. “Holidays,” one of them says laconically.

“Oh, your school holidays are on now?” I enquire.

“Yes, we begin school holidays at the end of June,” one of them says, a dark smiling lad who sprawls on his back on the shady grass.

“You’ve been all over Canada?”

“Yes, and to the United States.”

“Is it your first visit to England?” I ask. “What do you think of our country?”

At first, the spokesman of the group is a little hesitant. Then, as though anxious to be polite, he says, “We like it pretty well. It’s tiny. We don’t like your cities,” (why he won’t say), but presumably adds, “But we like your country. It’s like a park.” Almost every Canadian, accustomed to the wide-open spaces, says that of England.

“Your fields are so small, cut up by hedges,” says this Kitsilano boy.

“Yes, and you must almost have to anchor your cattle down,” says another.

“Anchor?” I exclaim.

“Why, yes, to keep them from straying because your fields are so small,” he replies.

“And you’re having a good time?” I ask.

“Very good. Everybody is trying to give us a good time.”

The boys like Plymouth, where they played on Friday evening, and one of them mentions the Hoe and they all laugh. But what the joke is about the Hoe is a secret they don’t divulge. Perhaps girls, perhaps some merry little stories there, maybe the name, well, anything!

“Well, cheerio and good luck,” I say. A parting shot, a quiet blasé, laconic “Thank you,” is theirs as I leave them.

Promptly at 1:30, the bands, playing en route, begin to arrive at the home of E.H. Richards, where, on the grounds, the contest is to be held. In showing Mr. Frank Wright into his tent, one of the officials is sympathetic that a judge should be confined for a long stretch on such a hot day. Mr. Wright assures him, however, that the heat is trifling compared to that of Central Queensland where, in mid-summer and with Northern Australia bordering on a draught, he once adjudicated for nine hours in a tent without a break.

To Mr. Wright, one of the features of the contest is the intense interest with which the vast crowd follows the performances. One can feel the silence that the audience never relaxes from their raptness until the last cadence is reached, and then what a tumult of applause breaks forth!

The class which the Kits band enters is a very distinguished one and consistently offers high-quality bands with lots of competition. They are billed as one of the finest junior bands globally, with the average age of their members only 17.

All eyes and ears are on the alert as the Vancouver boys file past the crowd seated

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in the enclosure, to take their places on the stand, dressed with a Glengarry cap, loose cape (navy and red), white shirts and navy trousers. As the hymn proceeds, one feels that their chance is not much discounted, for they play with a charming sweetness and mellowness, well -sustained chords of excellent quality that please all listeners, all listeners including Mr. Frank Wright, the adjudicator. “A Souvenir of Shakespeare” is also beautifully played. A lovely solo cornet, a good brass section helps to create a feeling that the Vancouver Boys have pressed very close on the heels of Newquay Town.

When it is all over (they play ninth in B Class), they win first place in the hymn division (for ‘Denton Park’) and second place in the concert selection winning the Hawkes Challenge Shield. They also won first place for deportment, being the best dressed and most disciplined band out of 20 others. They are chosen for this award by Lieutenant J.H. Kirchenside, who states he has no hesitation in presenting this award, although he is sorry to see the prize leave England, as it is emblematic of one of the greatest honours which can be bestowed upon competing bands.

In the Hymn Division, they have competed against five other well-known English adult bands (Newquay Town, Redruth Town, St. Just Silver, Indian Queens Silver and St. Pinnock). In the Harmony division, they had competed against 11 other well-known English adult bands. As there are no youth bands in England and the boys have to compete against 20 senior adult bands, the wins are extremely impressive. It is no small achievement once all the facts are known. The boys are a military band; they are made up of both reeds and brass. There were relatively few military bands in England in 1934, so they must enter as a brass band. The reeds are given a holiday. The boys have never played as a brass band per se. They have to learn to play as a brass band within a few weeks. Due to the skillful coaching of Mr. Delamont, the boys can compete and win two firsts and a second-place award from adult bands whose members have been engaged in this type of playing for 10 to 30 years. The playing lasts six hours in all, from two o’clock until eight o’clock in the evening.

Handel Parker, composer of the hymn ‘Denton Park,’ is in the audience and hears the boys play. He says after he hears their performance: “In my opinion, any band which can play a hymn tune as this one has done is of the highest calibre.” The boys win a handsome trophy for first place in the hymn division.

Mr. Wright says upon presenting the award to Mrs. Delamont (the boys and Arthur are in town playing a concert for the town’s people): “Let me hear a band play a hymn tune, and I will tell you what kind of a band it is.”

She receives two cups and one shield. She also receives 24 music stands for each of the 24 boys competing in the brass section, 14 pounds and a special award for Arthur, a leather music case. The crowds present go wild over the success of the boys and go downtown and surround them as they play in the town square. They give them a great ovation and send off.

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1968 That evening on the bandstand in Dartmouth.

“Boys, I switched the hymn tune for tonight to Denton Park instead of Deep Harmony,” announces Delamont.

“This following hymn tune,” he addresses the audience, “the boys played in Bugle forty years ago, and we won first prize. Not these boys. We want to play it for you, Denton Park.”

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The following day outside the hall Desmond has a barrow in the marketplace Molly is the singer in a band Desmond says to Molly, “Girl, I like your face” And Molly says this as she takes him by the hand Ob-la-di, ob-la-da Life goes on, bra La-la, how the life goes on Ob-la-di, ob-la-da Life goes on, bra La-la, how the life goes on We were all sad to leave Dartmouth when our week was up. Wally fitted in well, now that Mr. D had made it clear that he was in charge and not his guardian. On our various exploits traversing Dartmouth, we often wind up at Bayard’s Cove for a bit of a dip in the river. Wally would always cannonball into the river, splashing everyone else who was standing on the quay. But that was Wally, always needing to be the center of attention.

If he wasn’t such a good player, Mr. D might never have brought him along. Like so many, he was a trumpet player, but Mr. D had moved him to Baritone Horn to fill in the inner voices in the brass sections. With his size and weight, he did that perfectly.

The night before we leave Dartmouth Mr. D is getting ready for bed. He remembers what Malcolm had asked him back in London.

“Smart boy that Malcolm, wondering if anyone ever wrote to me in the past that had seen the band. Come to think of it, there was one letter that I always thought was

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rather special. What was that fellow’s name who wrote the letter,” he mutters as he quickly falls asleep.

1933 Moose Jaw, “The nearest approach to a Sousa Band ever heard.”

This quote was often made when people referred to Arthur’s band, used in the band’s programs and advertisements. Some say Arthur did see the Sousa band in person during the 1920s and the similarities between the two bands were striking. On the way back from Chicago, the band stopped in Moose Jaw to play a park concert on the banks of the Serpentine River. A gentleman remembered only as RDL who was present at that concert and who had also seen the Sousa band in London in 1901, wrote a letter afterwards to the Moose Jaw Spotlight newspaper: “The Kitsilano Boys’ Band is to give a concert in the Crescent Park tonight. They have always been favourites in Moose Jaw, but the prestige they bring with them as winners of the Chicago World’s Fair contest will ensure the attendance of a huge crowd to welcome them and enjoy the concert.

It is still fully half an hour before the time for starting as I circle the bandstand in a vain search for a vacant seat. I find a patch of coarse grass on the edge of the ravine and sit down contentedly to wait. It has been a glorious August day. The sun has set, and the peaceful twilight is deepening, but there is still sufficient light to give a clear reflection of the opposite bank in the still waters of the Serpentine. The tops of the trees by the Public Library, in particular, are beautifully mirrored. Over them, the outline of the stately pile of St. Andrew’s church shows sharply against the clear sky, the aspect of the high tower being impressively symbolical.

I find my memory reflecting on another August evening, when, in somewhat similar surroundings, I was awaiting the appearance of a famous band. On the grounds of the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1901, I first heard the much-heralded “Sousa’s band.”

The river Kelvin flowed past the bandstand almost as peacefully as the stiller waters of the Moose Jaw Serpentine. The famous Kelvin-grove immortalized in Scottish song was more spacious than the little clump of artificially planted trees opposite me. On the heights above the wood, the noble array of the university buildings would almost have dwarfed St. Andrew’s Church. The substantial similarity in the environment of tonight and that of a generation ago impressed me as I rose to attention. The band is playing “O Canada,” for the boys have come and the concert is on.

The opening march may not be one of Sousa’s, but it is pretty in the same style as those famous compositions, now known the entire world over. I have the feeling that it could not have been better played by Sousa’s own band. When Sousa came to Glasgow in 1901, he brought a crew of skillful musicians with him. It was not their playing; however, I am afraid, that remained in our memories so much as the freak antics of their conductor. He wielded the baton in a most unorthodox manner and was the joy of the

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Jane Baker and her friend talking to Dave Don and Jeannie kissing in the background

amateur caricaturists for years afterwards. Some twenty years after the Glasgow visit, I heard him in Regina. It was not quite the same Sousa. The full black beard gave way to a grey moustache, and all the freakishness had gone out of his conducting. He was still as alert, still as snappy as before, and was assuredly a great band conductor.

But it is difficult to imagine him having any more significant control over his men than Arthur Delamont, our former fellow-townsman has over his boys tonight. They synchronize to every beat of his baton; they respond to every movement of his hand. The program is quite as varied as any of Sousa’s ever was, a few classic pieces, a collection of well-loved operatic melodies, some of the popular airs of the day, a sweet and solemn hymn tune in which some excellent tone effects were produced, and a great collection of Scottish gems as a fitting finish. As the whole tone of the band is heard in Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot, the environment of 1901 becomes more real than ever. How well I remember the crowd around the bandstand: youth and beauty, laughter and lightheartedness. I look with new attention at the people around me tonight. It seems much the same as the former one, but I have changed! Let us see. I tiptoe through the gathering. Every now and then, friendly salutations greet my ear. Eyes sparkle, and pretty lips are parted in winning smiles. Alas, they are not for me. My son is walking by my side. A generation has gone - a new one has risen.”

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Everyone is there to see us off when we depart Dartmouth after Carnival week is over.

The Petties, like the Inman’s, had not accompanied us to Dartmouth. Instead, they had each gone off on separate trips to the continent, renting their own cars. Mrs. Tucker and many other town folks worked in the community hall where we stayed and prepared breakfast each morning.

While I am sad to leave, I am looking forward to seeing the major capitals of Europe.

Three days each in most of the Western capitals. I figure it will be a whirlwind tour like in the movie If This Is Tuesday It Must Be Belgium, and it lives up to my expectations.

Anyway, we all know leaving Dartmouth that we will be back again as the official band for Regatta week at the end of August.

However, some people at Dartmouth are not quite ready to let us go.

Two-miles from Dartmouth “It’s Jane Baker and her friend,” one of the boys at the back of the bus yells as he looks out the back window. We are a couple of miles out of Dartmouth heading east back to London when one of the boys spots Jane and her friend following us in a car. They must have followed us a good five miles before giving up the chase and heading home.

Evelyn was right. For the first time in my young life, I was beginning to understand what it was like to be a Beatle.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Our first stop on the continent is Copenhagen. Dave books us to play twice daily at Schuman’s Circus in Copenhagen’s amusement park by the sea, Tivoli Gardens. We

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play an afternoon concert and then an evening concert; Tivoli is magical! We meet up again with the Inman’s at Tivoli Gardens. One evening after the concert, I sit at an outdoor table with the Inman’s, Mr. D and Dave, around 10:00pm. The setting is enchanting, with coloured lights and music playing. When Dave isn’t around, if there are bumper cars, we know where to find him.

The Inman family consists of Bill’s older sister Robyn, who is a year younger than me, his younger sister Heather who is twelve, his mother and father and Bill who is fourteen.

Bill is four years younger than me, but bright and seems older than his age. Mr. D tells us older boys to keep an eye on the younger boys, so that’s what we do. The Inman’s are an upper Westside family, quite different from us eastside kids. They are well off or at least we figure they must be to be able to afford to travel around Europe together for two

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Robyn and me

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and a half months, at their own expense. The only way we eastside boys ever have a hope of seeing Europe is in a band.

Robyn is a private school girl. This is something new to both Keith and me. She is sophisticated in her manners and dress. It gets so that Keith and I compete with each other to see who can get back to their hotel and ask her out for the evening whenever they are travelling with the band. I remember beating him to the draw at least on one occasion in London, and Robyn and I spent a good part of the evening seeing the sites of London in a taxi with her brother Bill on the opposite seat, taking pictures. It didn’t really matter who beat who. I often defer to Keith as he is a year older and has gotten me into the band. Besides, he is the most intelligent guy in the group, and we all know he is destined for a great future. The same thing happens with the Baillie girls. We both like Maggi but Maggi likes Keith, so I defer. After we returned to Vancouver, Robyn went away to school in Grenoble to study French. I got a letter from her once, which I still have. Funny how we hold on to things that connect us to our past.

All of us in the band are happy to have the Inman’s around. They are great role models for all the boys and a fine example of the successful family we all want to have one day. day.

One day, a group of us boys and Mr. D find ourselves lost. Mr. D asks Keith to go into a consulate building and get directions. Keith is an honour student and knows all about governments and world history, so he returns quickly with the tips, and we are on our way.

Cologne After three days are up, it is back on the plane and on to Cologne. In Cologne, we begin to prepare for the Kerkrade Music Festival. Daily, we march up and down the banks of the Rhine River on a roadway, out of sight of the pedestrian traffic above. “You’re getting a lot of curious looks from passersby,” Dave tells us afterwards.

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We spend our spare time visiting the Cologne Cathedral, which still has potholes from bombs and shrapnel exploding around it during WWII. We play concerts around town in front of buildings with beautiful gothic architecture and marvel that the damage from the war is still so visible twenty years later.

A valve on George Ellenton’s sousaphone is sticking, so Mr. D says, “Go find a music repair shop and get it fixed.” George looks in the yellow pages and finds a shop, all in German, of course. George is walking down a street in Cologne, in slacks, sweatshirt and sports jacket with the body of the sousaphone wrapped around his shoulder.

Ah, look at all the lonely people Ah, look at all the lonely people Eleanor Rigby Picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been Lives in a dream Waits at the window Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door Who is it for?

All the lonely people Where do they all come from?

All the lonely people Where do they all belong?

He eventually finds the shop, and the fellow, of course, speaks no English. Anyway, he fixes the valve. On his way back, it is starting to get hot because the sun has come out.

He is wearing his slacks and sports jacket, so he decides to go into a bar and have a beer.

He gets talking to this guy, and he buys him a couple of more beers. When he comes out of the bar, he is totally disorientated. He has no idea where he is, so he sees some railway tracks. He figures the best way to get back into town is to follow the railway tracks, except he begins following them in the wrong direction, out of town. He realizes his error when he sees a sign which reads, “Dusseldorf that way!” Finally, he flags down a taxi. He doesn’t speak any English either. All he can remember about the charming converted bunker we are staying in is “am zoo” or by the zoo. So, he says, “Take me to Cologne Cathedral.”

He takes him to the Cologne Cathedral. He finally finds the streetcar that takes him back to the bunker. He whips into the bunker, assembles his sousaphone, rushes as fast as he can down to the bandstand and sits down just in time for the opening downbeat.

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NOTES:

Hamburg

Our next stop is Hamburg. In Hamburg, we stay in an old WWII bunker on the outskirts of town. There is a long-playing field that we assume had been used for drill practice by German soldiers because at the end of the area is an old bunker with the names of, again we think being kids, soldiers carved into the cement walls and the occasional SS.

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Wally discovers the red light district in Hamburg known as the Reeperbahn. He gathers up a few of the younger kids and takes them on tour each night. I am sure he isn’t a customer. Each girl has a window display where she sits and displays her wares. Customers and tourists walk by, and if they are interested, open her door and go inside. The way Wally tells the story, you think he is a paying customer, but he is far too young and inexperienced for that sort of thing. But that is Wally, always needing to be the center of attention. Wally and one of the younger boys decide to bleach their hair blonde, which when Mr. D sees them, he makes them both shave their hair off.

Kerkrade To get us to Kerkrade, Holland from Hamburg, Dave hires a bus. We are all billeted out in Kerkrade with Dutch families. None of us know how the festival will go as it is the first Kerkrade Festival for everyone except one boy, John. There is a lot of pressure; we all know that the band had won gold and silver in 1962 at Kerkrade. We want to do just as well!

The following day when Keith and I come out of our billet’s house, two beautiful, blond Dutch girls are standing, leaning against a home on the opposite side of the street.

They may have had two of our boys staying with them; we never do find out. We prefer to think they are waiting for us each morning.

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NOTES:

That day, we can all visit the concert hall where we will be performing the next day.

There are lots of other bandsmen and conductors there as well. Two other conductors try to strike up a conversation with Mr. D. “Have you performed here before,” asks one conductor of Mr. D? “A few times,” Mr. D replies. He doesn’t seem too interested in discussing his past history with them.

“Did your band win,” the other asks?

“A couple of times,” Mr. D comments, still appearing not interested, and then he walks away.

“Hmph!” scolds one of the men. “It’s probably his first time to Holland, and I doubt he has ever won anything.” The other man nods his head in agreement, and both men walk away.

Later that night, as Mr. D is going to bed.

“Have I ever been here before,” the nerve of the man? “Have I ever won anything?

There isn’t a festival I have ever entered my boys in that we have not won first place,” he adds, turning off the light and falling into a deep sleep.

June 14, 1950, their fourth trip to England and Europe, five months

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Onboard the M/V Koningin Emma, the boys can see the harbour off Harwick, England, strewn with funnels and masts above the watermarking the graves of big ships.

They also see a battery of anti-aircraft guns and a radar station built on substantial concrete pylons in the water. On the voyage, they have the best lunch they have had since leaving home. They arrive at the Hook at 6:30 pm and board a small electric train that takes them straight to Hillegom, Holland. The whole coast is a mass of fortifications and pillboxes built by the Germans.

When the boys arrive in Hillegom, they are not in the best of spirits. Mr. D had told them to carry their own luggage and instruments, both on and off the British train to Harwick and the M/V Koningin Emma and the train at the Hook. To make matters worse, the band’s gear is stacked in the aisles and between the seats, making for a very uncomfortable trip. Mr. D is concerned that the band’s equipment might not be adequately handled by those who worked on the boat and train. Looking out their windows in Hillegom, the boys see a crowd of people at the train station. They assume some wellknown person must be arriving. Suddenly, a swarm of Boy Scouts flies into their cars, seizes their entire luggage and sails out to the streets. On the road, an “oom-pah-pah” band plays welcoming music as the boys disembark and the townspeople cheer - they are the VIPs! Preceded by a Dutch band and followed by the Boy Scouts, the boys are marched past applauding crowds and up to the front of the town’s concert hall. Every seat is filled, and more people are clustered outside. The boys are expected to put on a concert. Quickly donning their uniforms, the stage seating is arranged, and the show is played.

At intermission, local people ply the boys with soft drinks and kind words. Mrs. Delamont is presented with an enormous bouquet of roses, and every band member receives a small pair of wooden shoes and a crochet/trimmed handkerchief with a picture of a windmill. Next comes the presentation of a flag, hand-crafted by local women in the town’s colours. Hillegom was liberated by Canadian troops in the war, but the soldiers moved on to fight across Holland and into Germany without the townsfolk showing their gratitude. The city has decided to show its appreciation through this gesture of kindness to the Vancouver Boys’ band.

Their next stop is on Sunday, June 25, at Scheveningen, Holland. The countryside is beautiful as they travel along by train. They can see lots of American cars and hundreds of bicycles. There is a monument in remembrance of soldiers killed nearby while fighting the Germans at nearly every bridge. They see many battlefields.

In Scheveningen, the boys take a short march along a beautiful seafront on the North Sea and play a concert for a small crowd on the patio of an elegant hotel. After a big lunch in an open-air restaurant on the seafront where the waiters wear tails, they depart by train again for Zandvoort, arriving at 5:30 pm. The boys march up to their nice Hotel De Schelp. After a good dinner, they play a concert at the ‘Dunes.’ It is a sand dune at

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the edge of the city where men were shot in a battle. They play a two-hour concert in an open-air bandstand to a large crowd.

On June 26, they leave for Eindhoven, passing through Amsterdam on the way. In Eindhoven, they march behind the Police Band up to the city hall to meet city officials.

After dinner at another elegant hotel where they stay, they are off to a beautiful park where they play before a large crowd. In every town, the boys are billeted out with families or stay in hotels.

June 27, in the afternoon, the boys arrive on the beautiful little Isle of Texel. The boys see a submerged submarine and mass fortifications, guns, and pillboxes crossing over to Texel. They travel past German fortifications and the remains of farms destroyed by the Germans on the small island. They are given a fine reception. After dinner, they play a concert which practically everyone on the Isle attends. Afterwards, they all go to a terrific dance, and the boys all wish they could stay longer as everyone is toasting them and showing them kindness.

June 28, they arrive in Bergen and play in an open-air park. After meeting the mayor, they meet their billets. A lot of people are wearing wooden shoes, and there are dogs

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and horses pulling carts as well. On the 29th, they leave Bergen at 8 am for the little city of Hilversum. In Hilversum, they record a half-hour program at a grand modern radio station.

About 3 pm, they leave Hilversum for a twenty-minute ride to Amersfoort, where two bands meet them at the station. After the usual reception, they march to a theatre and play a concert and then receive their billets.

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The following day they rehearse the test piece for the music festival in Oosterbeek, where they will be competing on July 1. At 2:30, they catch the train for Middelburg, where they perform an evening concert.

In Middelburg, Ron Wood is billeted with people who fought in the Dutch resistance.

They take him into a room and push a button, and one complete wall slides back to reveal a radio transmitter. It had been connected to London during the war and was the central transmitter for the area. They tell him lots of stories. They give him a complete collection of ‘Occupied Holland’ coins made of plastic.

In Oosterbeek, Arthur has entered the boys in the Oosterbeek International Music Festival, the forerunner to the Kerkrade Music Festival. When they arrive in Oosterbeek on July 1, they quickly change into their uniforms and march down to the parade grounds, where they immediately go into the “International Marching Competition.”

They compete against bands from France, Denmark, Holland, and Great Britain.

About 5 pm that afternoon, they go back to the music festival and compete in “De Harmonie class.” The test piece is the Academic Festival Overture. The festival is held in a tent, set up on an airborne landing field near the city of Arnhem. That evening they played a concert at the festival hall to a large crowd. After the intermission, the boys are all presented with a pair of Dutch miniature shoes and after about twenty minutes of speeches in Dutch, thanking them for winning the war and liberating Holland, the boys hear three cheers and ‘Viva Canada’ and are awarded 1st prize in the International Marching Band Championship. For this, they receive a gold medal. They also receive the highest honours in the Harmonie Internationale class and receive a sterling silver oak cluster.

The Dutch people give the boys an enthusiastic reception everywhere they travel throughout Holland.

August 1958, their seventh tour of England and Europe, four months Whipping the boys into shape for the 1958 Kerkrade Music Festival is primarily left to Gordon, Arthur’s son, as Arthur is busy looking after Lillie much of the time. Lillie is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Gordon coaches the boys in sectional rehearsals and explains how to perform music in a country where music is a way of life. He tells them, “If you go into a meat store and the butcher is reading a Mozart score and listening to the piece on his radio, you do not tell him how the piece should be played.”

“Our big competition in Kerkrade is a French band made up of professors from the ‘Sorbonne’ in Paris,” says an old boy years later. Major Peter Erwin VKBB, 1951-’58, Band Director, 15th Field Regiment Band

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On August 1, the band departs Harwick for ‘The Hook,’ Holland.

Arthur has found out that one of the judges at the festival will be Eric Leidzen, so he chooses a piece that Eric Leidzen composed.

On August 2, 39 boys from Canada crash and blow through the First Swedish Rhapsody by Erik Leidzen, the overture to The Magic Flute and Gassey’s Sea Portrait. The packed concert hall at Kerkrade, Holland, has never known anything like it. Aficionados of the brass band world from all over Europe, having heard and seen adult players in 27 bands compete with bulging cheeks and flying fingers, now listen with growing amazement as the boys, aged 15 to 18, perform like veterans. Newspapers read: The boys in dark blue pants with a red stripe, white shirts and dark blue capes lined with scarlet are veterans. They are on a tour of five countries that will last 125 days and cost nearly $40,000, and in which they play to the Scots, Germans, and Dutch. They are to travel 30,000 miles, suffer seasickness and homesickness, struggle with strange languages and unfamiliar food and sleep in odd places, including the basement of a roller-rink with the rumble of wheels overhead. They are often exhausted, laid low by fierce Atlantic storms and bored by long train trips. Moreover, their leader is a testy perfectionist who glowers and seems to sulk on a wrong note, hurls sarcasm at their young heads, and insists on practice even when all the novelties of Europe are available for the first time to 39 young adventurers. They love it!

The West Vancouver Boys’ Band has beaten the world. When the results of the 28 entries in the great Kerkrade International contest for brass bands are announced, the boys from British Columbia score 288 out of 300. While in Kerkrade, they play on a radio broadcast and perform a concert for the town’s people. Everyone who hears the boys perform is mystified that they can win both the test piece and the marching competitions, which is just not done.

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Michael Hadley, one of Arthur’s old boys from the 1950 and 1953 tours, lives in Brussels in 1958. A telegram arrives for Michael at the Department of Trade and Commerce in Brussels where he is working, on August 1, the same day the boys enter the Kerkrade Music Festival. It reads: “Band in Brussels August 7 or 6 and urgently require accommodation party of 47, includes 39 boys, conductor with wife and two lady companions, assistant conductor with wife and two children. Also advise, regarding band playing Brussels, August 6 or 7.

Reply care of W. Fielding, 54 Haymarket London, SW1. Regards, Delamont.”

Michael has one week to fulfill Arthur’s request, so he scrambles to arrange their accommodation and two bookings and meets their tour bus on the approach to Brussels, where he briefs Mr. D on his visit. Neither he nor Mr. D has really doubted the request (Well, okay, Michael might have questioned a bit) that what Mr. D asks for he would, in fact, actually get.

1962, their eighth trip to England and Europe, four and a half months

Brussel World’s Fair

On June 5, the boys arrive in Paris. Immediately, they go down the Champs-Elysees.

This is right after the problems in Algeria. It is like a military fortress; police are walking down the streets with machine guns.

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“Stop the bus! Everybody out and get your instruments and capes. We are going to play,” says Delamont. Right in the middle of the Champs - Elysee! The minute the boys step out, there are policemen all over them, but they don’t do anything. So they march down the Champs - Elysees and play. Then they stop and sell postcards while people gather around.

“During our stay in Paris, we play regularly in parks and see a lot of the Parisian way of life,” says Bill Ingledew, trumpet. You really have to accept Arthur’s way of doing things if you were going to get along in the organization,” recalls Rob Arseneau, trumpet, 196267.

One day, Ted Milbrandt, Billy Millerd, and Chris Crane leave a cafe in Paris and cross the road, which triggers an unfortunate series of events. Chris now has the Citroen van that ran him down permanently etched on his body - the dent from its left headlight still in his upper right leg and pain in his crushed left leg where it ran over him. The driver visits Billy Millerd and Chris in the hospital and is quite upset that Chris has managed to put his van out of commission for two weeks. This driver was having a race with another car, was on the wrong side of the road and hit Chris when he stepped off the curb. Chris hit Bill on the way by, breaking Bill’s elbow in three parts and cracking his head. Chris travelled a block down the road on the front of the van, fell off the front and then got run over. Chris woke up in the ambulance to see Billy covered in blood - the goldcrest on his sweater now red - Chris was in the same state and had the glass of a headlight embedded in his leg. He promptly lost consciousness again. When the rest of the band found out that Chris and Bill had managed to live through these events, the ensuing celebration led to the death of band member Ricky Patterson. Ricky and another boy are playing around in the shower, and Ricky hits his head on the shower nozzle. Sometime the following day, Ricky collapses and is rushed to a hospital with a concussion. Ricky passes away shortly afterwards. Chris’s continuous pain is a constant reminder of Ricky - all the pain it caused and continues to various 1962 band members because this incident is never adequately resolved.

“The rest of the trip is a bit of a blur for me as I had developed blood poisoning from the Paris hospital and came down with mononucleosis in Cologne where I spent some time in a much cleaner hospital where any bug would be immediately exterminated,” relates Chris Crane, 1958-’62 Rick’s parents fly to Paris from Vancouver, and it is decided that he will be buried in a cemetery in the heart of Paris. Arthur meets individually with each boy in his darkened hotel room and, in a sombre mood, asks each boy one at a time if they want to carry on with the trip or to go home. The parents’ association feels that the boys should all come home, but Arthur wants to carry on. This makes it difficult for some boys because they don’t want to go against their parents, yet most want to continue the trip. Finally, they came to a unanimous decision to carry on.

One of the most moving moments that Bill Ingledew can remember is Rick’s funeral.

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The cemetery is one hundred and fifty years old. They have never allowed music to be played in the graveyard. It is just not done. The band plays, and it is a pretty moving experience. “We play a hymn, and I play a solo.” Bill Ingledew.

While in Nice, Arthur sees a huge American band playing a concert in a bandshell. He decides he wants to put on a show in the same place. Somehow or another, he makes it happen. The boys are not booked to play in the bandshell, and the crowds are not as big, but it is quite a thrill for the boys nonetheless. After Rick’s death, Arthur lets the parents know that they aren’t telling him what to do. There is a lot of turmoil because people don’t know what is going to happen. Some of the boys are called before the French Surete’ and questioned about Rick’s death. How did they know there had been a fight the night before between Rick and Jack Wright? None of the boys would talk. The Canadian ambassador is there. No one knew what was going to happen to Jack Wright.

He was in police custody, and that is when the band left and went down to Nice. It is pretty much up in the air until they return Jack to the group, and then everything is fine.

Bob Calder 1958, ‘62, high school principal Arthur’s new wife Tracy brings her daughter Marni along on the trip. Marni and Bill Ingledew become terrific friends and date later. That marriage does not work out too well. Whenever Arthur feels down on the trip, he talks to John Rands and Bill Ingledew about his personal problems. The kids act as a sounding board for seventy-year-old Arthur. He is frustrated because things are not the way they were with his first wife.

Bill guesses he talked to him because Bill is close to Marni. Bill remembers countless evenings with Arthur and John, trying to figure out what to do!

The band is scheduled to perform a series of concerts in Cologne, Germany, before going to Kerkrade from July 22 through 30. On July 15, Michael Hadley received a similar telegram to the one from Arthur in Brussels on his 1958 tour. Again, Michael jumps into action, with accommodation arranged as required – as well as a significant engagement with West German Radio and the city’s ‘concert in the park’ series. The band enjoys a brilliant visit. Mr. D and Michael negotiate the program with the station’s musical director, and once on the air, Michael acts as interpreter and commentator.

The unique program they play displays the band’s virtuosity. The on-air patter and the interview with Michael are in German, so Michael has to rely on eye contact to cue Mr. Delamont (who doesn’t understand German) in. Michael may once have fantasized as a young horn player that they were working closely together, but now they really are. Mr. D and Michael enjoy a robust and genuine relationship. Indeed, Michael felt that most strongly when he marches the band past the balcony of the flat in which his wife and baby daughter are living about a block from the Rhine river in downtown Cologne—and salutes. Michael Hadley 1950-’53, Professor of German Literature, University of Victoria.

While in Cologne, more bad luck befalls the band. Six of the boys come down with

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mononucleosis and have to be hospitalized. Nothing like this has ever happened on any trips to the UK. Arthur seriously wonders about pulling out of the Kerkrade Band Festival, but as the day of the festival approaches, two boys are well enough to return to the band, so he decides to go ahead. The other four boys remain in the hospital for six weeks, receiving lots of rest and blood transfusions.

Bob Buckley gets sick in Amsterdam. The band goes to Cologne, Germany. Bob is one of the boys who wind up in a hospital in Cologne for five weeks while the band continues touring. This is what Bob is told by one of the mothers who come to visit him. Three boys got sick. The mother of two of the boys comes over to be with them. The senior doctor, who can’t speak any English, was apparently a Nazi fighter pilot during the war.

He is a big blond guy with blue eyes. The other two boys recover faster, and Bob ends up staying by himself for about three weeks. The other doctor, who is in his twenties and can speak English, is a jazz saxophone player.

As Bob gets better, the doctor sneaks him out and takes him to hear the jazz bands down on the Rhine. Bob remembers going to this one club in particular. The ‘Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland’ big band is playing. Bob buys their album there, and he still has it. He has all the guys sign it. It is still one of his favourite jazz albums. The doctor knows all the musicians, so it is a real thrill!

While Bob is in the hospital, he writes a piece for concert band called ‘The Vancouver Suite.’ It is in three movements, and the band performs it at their homecoming concert.

Dal Richards is the MC. Bob Buckley 1962, rock musician/film composer From August 1 through 9, the boys rehearse madly in Cologne for the festival and then depart for the short bus ride to Kerkrade on August 10. They are billeted out in Gulpin. On August 11, they win a silver medal in the harmony division with 78 points and the next day, they win a gold medal in the marching competition with 98 points.

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1968 The next day at the Kerkrade Music Festival Delamont is waiting with us boys for our turn to play. The two men who tried to strike up a conversation with him are also waiting for their turn to play. An announcement comes over the loudspeaker.

“We would like to extend a special welcome to our friends from Canada this afternoon. Arthur Delamont and his Kitsilano Boys Band have been coming to our festival even before it was our festival. They performed in the first Oosterbeek Festival back in 1950. The Oosterbeek Festival was the forerunner to our Kerkrade Festival. His band won first place in the marching competition and first place in the Harmonie Division, winning double gold. Then, in 1958 they were back at our Kerkrade Festival and again won double gold, something that was unheard of in those days. His boys were all between the ages of 15 and 18. All the other bands were made up of adult players. Then again, in 1962, he appeared with a smaller band but still took first place in the marching competition and a second in the Harmonie Division. Mr. Delamont has been winning band contests since the 1930s. His biggest achievement was at the Crystal Palace in London, England, in 1936, where his boys beat 35 of England’s finest adult bands. We wonder how his boys will do today. If you see him, be sure and say hello because we don’t know how many more of these festivals he will be attending.”

The two men approach Arthur again as he and his boys begin to make their way on stage.

“What did you say your name was,” one of them asks?

“I didn’t,” replies Delamont, turning as he walks.” But just for the record, it’s Arthur Delamont,” he yells with a big smile and continues on his way.

The two men’s jaws drop in amazement!

“The whole band is kind of numb to what is going on. We boys aren’t really nervous, but they are paying close attention to what is being said by Mr. D because nobody wants to step out of line. We go out and sit down and open our music, which is already on the music stands. It is all very professional. After we had all sat down, we heard a little bell go ‘ding.’ The adjudicators sat way in the back of the room. We can’t really see them.

We play a hymn to warm up, it is eerily quiet, and the audience applauds. We then play the test piece, the same one we played at every concert for the last four weeks. It isn’t toe-tapping music. The audiences always look rather oddly at us when we play it, but it is meant to test the band with tempo and key changes. When we finished, we all thought it sounded pretty good. Nobody made a mistake. There is another ‘ding,’ and we all get up and leave the stage. There are two test pieces. We take our seats. Later, back in the hall, they announce the winners. We come second in the concert. There is some booing because some people, we guess, think we should get first place. Then, when they announce the winner, there is more booing.

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The next day, we went into the marching competition. I always stand next to Mr. D. We march around the track. Judges are walking through the rows, making sure everyone is playing. When we are walking to the bus, we hear that we have come first. We all think it is ironic because we are not really a marching band. I guess we are the best sounding band that can march.” Barry Leinbach 1966

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Zurich, Switzerland In Zurich, we play a concert every afternoon in the beautiful Platzspitz Park overlooking the Limmat River in the heart of downtown. The rest of the time, we have free to explore Zurich. We meet up again with the Inman’s in Zurich. After a day of sightseeing, we all go out for a Swiss classic, fondue. It is my first time eating fondue, and it is lots of fun! We try both cheese fondue and beef fondue. At first, the beef falls off my skewer into the bowl of boiling oil. The next time, I am more successful. The cheese fondue is easier. There are several kinds of bread to dip into the cheese and several kinds of cheese boiling. It is a messy evening! My first introduction to Swiss cuisine is exciting, but in the future, I leave fondue for the winter months, as it is very filling.

Geneva, Switzerland It is certainly proving to be a whirlwind tour of the capital cities of Europe. We no sooner settle into our rooms in a pension, play a concert and then we are off again to our next destination, but that is the sixties. In Geneva, we play shows daily in another beautiful park by Lake Geneva. The band is sounding pretty good, and we boys have

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gained a lot of confidence after winning the Kerkrade Music Festival. We are proud of our achievement and glad we have not let Mr. D down by not winning as his earlier bands did.

One afternoon, during a concert, I got tired of playing a solo I always play. When it is time for the solo, I tell the younger boy next to me to stand up and pretend to play. He hams it up, swaying his sax to the left and to the right but then before the solo is over, he takes the sax out of his mouth and wipes his chops with a long draw of his sleeve. It is evident to anyone watching that he isn’t really playing the solo. I think I’m going to get killed by Mr. D afterwards, but when I look up at him, I see his head buried in his music, chuckling away. He likes a good laugh too! Mr. D always gives us boys a lot of rope on these trips. Some say enough to hang us if we do anything wrong, but we always seem to know what is right and wrong. We have a lot of respect for him, and in turn, he shows us a lot of respect as well. I never hear of any boy who played in his band getting into trouble in later years. That is due to the lessons we all learned playing in his band.

After the concert was over, I buried an old ligature in the garden by the bandstand.

A ligature is the metal holder that keeps the reed on the mouthpiece of a saxophone.

Maybe, one day, I will come back and see if it is still there, sort of like a time capsule. Of course, I don’t, and if I had, it would have eroded anyway, the naivety of youth.

Madrid, Spain

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Madrid is exciting, bullfights, Gran Via and paella. In Madrid, we all stay at the Hotel Puerta Toledo. The Inman’s come with us as well. When we arrive at our hotel, Dave Mackenzie tells us that we are far away from downtown, so we can’t go in until the morning. I discovered many years later on a trip to Madrid that we were just a stone’s throw from Plaza Mayor and a few blocks from the Spanish Broadway, Gran Via. I guess Mr. D didn’t want us out late running around a strange new city, which was even unknown to him. In 1968, the Dictator Franco was still in power, and Spain was still somewhat ostracized after the war, leaving it poor and behind other western European countries. The buildings are all covered in black soot and badly in need of attention. The subway cars are wooden, and there are armed guards at each station.

We don’t play any concerts while in Spain except, one night, Dave hurries us all into a rented touring bus about 10pm, and we travel off into the countryside to a movie set. It is one of those spaghetti westerns that are common in the sixties. It stars B-rated American movie stars such as Lee Van Cleef and is probably an Italian production. We perform Macarena for the movie, our most Spanish sounding piece and play a concert afterwards for the actors. It is lots of fun, and we are still going strong at midnight. They feed us well as our reward.

My visit to Madrid starts a lifelong love affair with Spain and Madrid. I returned several times throughout my lifetime. Everyone goes to a bullfight in Madrid once, but it isn’t something any of us writes home about. Seeing as how the bull doesn’t have a chance, to us, it is just a lot of blood and guts as the bull is killed and hauled out the back where he is chopped up and the meat is given to the poor, all of which we can witness if we want to look over the backside of the bleachers.

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It is scorching in Madrid, but we perform a junk music concert on the street beside our hotel one afternoon. The Inman’s are there listening, and Mr. D dances with Mrs. Inman. On our last night in Madrid, Dave takes a bunch of us out for paella, my first introduction to this most Spanish of Spanish foods.

Nice, France We stay in a youth hostel in Nice, high up on a hill looking out over the Mediterranean and down on Nice. It is idyllic!

In the Battle of the Flowers Parade, Arthur enters us, a five-mile-long parade along the Promenade des Anglais, paralleling the seaside. When the event is over, we are awarded first prize for best band. Neither Arthur nor any of us have been informed prior that it is a contest, but it wouldn’t have mattered because we probably still would have won; we were getting so good!

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“The French Riviera—Hallelujah!—scenery, water, sunshine, Princess Caroline and...

Motor scooters! On our second day in Nice, we all head down to the motor scooter rental shop—39 of us. They only have about 20 scooters, so we have to double up, and the man at the desk gets so frustrated that he throws all the keys and registration papers into a big pile, and we all have to grapple for a key which we try to match up to one of the scooters. Finally, like Peter Fonda in the movie Easy Rider, we are off, cruising down the Cote d’Azur towards Monte Carlo, two by two, throttles grasped firmly in our hands, at 20 mph, putt, putt. Nothing can stop us. We are born to be wild, or at least so we think until we reach Monte Carlo when a gendarme pulls us all over to the side. When he tries to match up our registration papers with our scooters, none of them match, as we have all grabbed the nearest papers, not thinking we need to have the paper that matches the scooter we took. After two hours of trying to explain that we are naive tourists on our first trip to Europe, he lets us go and we putt back to Nice, feeling more like Peter Rabbit than Peter Fonda.”

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Paris, France

When we arrive at our youth hostel on the Boulevard St. Michel, we see gendarmes and police vans everywhere. We come in the middle of the student riots at the Sorbonne. Later, Dave McKenzie and one of the drummers, Bruce Ball, wander around looking at the artists creating chalk drawings on the sidewalks. Eventually, they go into a restaurant. It is late at night. The couple in front of them is speaking English; they are Americans. It turns out that the guy is the leader of the student riots. Like most of us, Bruce is just a naive teenager; he really doesn’t know much about it. The Americans pay for their dinner. On another day, Dave and Bruce are sitting in a restaurant looking out this big front window. In one direction come the students, and the Gendarmes, wearing riot gear from the other direction. It is the best show in town.

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You say you want a revolution Well, you know We all want to change the world You tell me that it’s evolution Well, you know We all want to change the world Arthur never put any of his boys down. He never criticizes us individually. Just persuades us. It is like we are the first band he has ever had. The personal touch.

He teaches us how to play music. He teaches us how to sight-read. He teaches us how to be a part of a group. He teaches us how to be with other people and get along. Arthur is the key that makes it all happen. Bruce Ball’ 66-’68, geologist While we are in Paris, we try to play a concert in the Jardin du Luxembourg.

There is a pile of chairs stacked on the edge of the pathway. We help ourselves to 39 and set up and start playing a concert. It isn’t long before we have a pretty good size crowd. Then, a man comes along and tells Mr. D that we have to pay for the chairs. Mr. D hasn’t budgeted for any unexpected expenses, so he tells us to pack up, get into March formation, and we march out of the park.

The next day, Russian tanks and soldiers invade Czechoslovakia. We can draw

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a straight line on a map between Prague and Paris. Being naïve teenagers, we think they will not stop there but continue on to Paris, but of course, that doesn’t happen.

Europe is a very controversial place in the summer of ‘68. It is the summer of free love, flower power and hippies, and everyone is in Europe; in fact, you are more likely to meet your next-door neighbour under the Eiffel Tower than you are a European. The youth hostels are filled, the parks are filled, and the airports are filled with backpackers wearing jeans, sneakers, and a country of origin flag. No one knows where they are going, where they have come from, or why they are there, but they are all having the best time of their lives.

I was eighteen on this wonderful trip I made with Arthur and the band, and I have many fond memories to this day. I remember Carnaby Street, the mods and rockers, fish and chips, Southend-On-Sea, the Kursaal Ballroom and the “Longest Pier in the World,” which, when I return home, a family friend remarks to her husband: “Hey, John, they’re talking about you.” I remember a jukebox in a community hall where we stayed in Dartmouth that mysteriously plays The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine every morning at 6:00 am. I remember having a pocketful of marks, kroners, pesetas and shillings, and thinking about opening a Swiss bank account, but I had less than a dollar when I added them all up. I remember the little guy on the sousaphone being loaded down by people throwing coppers into his sousaphone on the parade route and the back two rows of the band marching off on their own when they got bored with the parade. I remember sitting in a pub in Hamburg when the British were playing the Germans in the World Cup soccer finals and rooting for the British. I remember running out of the pub real fast when the British won. I remember seeing my first ever topless show at the Lido in Paris and thinking how great the band was. I remember marching along the banks of the Rhine in

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Cologne. The road was below and slightly under the main street, and the people above could not see us nor discern where the music was emanating from. I remember an Italian band at the Kerkrade Music Festival, which came from somewhere high in the mountains of Northern Italy with baritone saxophones and bassoons, out of step and out of time, playing Handel’s Death March or some similarly appropriate tune.

You say you got a real solution Well, you know We’d all love to see the plan You ask me for a contribution Well, you know We’re all doing what we can But if you want money for people with minds that hate All I can tell you is brother you have to wait Don’t you know it’s gonna be (all right) Don’t you know it’s gonna be (all right) Don’t you know it’s gonna be (all right) There is a piano in our youth hostel in Paris. One evening, one of the boys plays and sings some of his original songs for the rest of the boys.

Southend-on-Sea

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Back in London, we are off to Southend-on-Sea, a seaside resort southeast of London, where we spend a week playing for the Carnival and marching in the Carnival parade with the Carnival Queens. We sleep on the floor in the Kursaal Ballroom, on mattresses, as those before us have done. It is an old fixture in the amusement park on the waterfront. Whenever we can’t find Dave, we know where to look, the bumper cars. One of the boys, Richard Christie, pares up with the carnival queen and others with her ladiesin-waiting.

One day just before a concert on the pier is about to begin, Mr. D seems to be staring off into a completely different world: August 25, 1962, Southend-on-Sea

While playing a concert in Southend-on-Sea for hundreds of people, the band has to do with a tiny stage. The trombones and baritones have to sit in the front row with the percussion in the back. The clarinets, saxophones and trumpets are on ground level.

Two of the boys, Charlie Bowman and Barry Brown, share the first trombone stand, as it is very windy. Barry agrees to turn the pages and adjust the clothes pegs while Charlie plays. Bill Ingledew is playing a trumpet solo standing on the ground level below them.

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All of a sudden, their music blows off the stand and lands on Bill’s head. Bill keeps playing! Then the music stand starts to sway, and as Charlie goes to grab it, he lets go of his slide and hits Bill in the back of the head, knocking his hat over his eyes. By this time, the whole band is laughing. Mr. D is furious, but Charlie is more concerned about his slide.

Delamont kicks Charlie out of the concert and fines him fifty dollars for swearing.

Mr. D starts to laugh loudly and then regains his composure and remarks, “Didn’t seem so funny back then.”

London After Southend-on-Sea, we return to London for a few days before getting back on our bus and heading to the Port of Dartmouth, Royal Regatta.

“You all have a few days off to visit relatives or sightsee,” exclaims Mr. D after breakfast at the Salvation Army Hall where we are staying.

Later, Mr. D is walking alone by Hyde Park when he comes across a beautiful bronze plaque that reads: The Crystal Palace stood across the street for over 100 years. It was a British institution and hosted many organizations and influential people over the decades and was a big part of London society and its social scene.

“That’s another place I haven’t thought about in years,” Mr. D thinks, sitting down on a park bench. “Those really were the days.”

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1936 Second British Tour, three months and three weeks The National Brass Band Competition at the Crystal Palace is the big attraction of the tour. It is only for brass bands, so Arthur gives the band’s brass section extra rehearsals to get ready for the competition. Arthur is open to comments from those qualified to provide them with, which is the case when he asks the organist at the Astoria cinema his thoughts about the boys’ performance one afternoon. On another occasion, the brass section travels to the Duke of York’s headquarters, conducted by a Mr. Windrum, associated with the Scots Guards Band. Afterwards, Arthur rearranges the boy’s seating. They also play a concert for soldiers at the London Barracks. And leading up to the competition at the 31st Annual Crystal Palace Band Festival, they perform before a crowd of more than 70,000 people at Wembley Stadium. Then the 6-day Bicycle Races come to Wembley Sports Arena. On the day of the contest, the boys are performing at Wembley.

Arthur pulls the 24 boys that he wants out of Wembley and takes them to the competition while the others carry on.

The ‘Junior’ band competition is one of the big features of the annual band day at the Palace, and the Cassell’s Challenge Shield is one of the sought-after trophies offered.

The word ‘Junior’ really means small bands, limited to 25, including the conductor. Only brass instruments are permitted in this class.

At the Crystal Palace, in the Canadian Building located near a low-level station, the boys are called up on stage to perform, they just sit down, and it is declared that it is ‘tea time.’ They all shuffle out onto the back lawn, behind the stage, for intermission.

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When they finally start playing, they are almost disqualified because the adjudicators think they have French horns in the band. French horns are not allowed in brass bands.

Of course, they do not; it is just the fine playing of the trombone section that sounds so mellow. The boys finally play 33rd out of 35 adult bands. Unfortunately, they cannot wait around to hear the results because they have to hurry back to Wembley to continue their “paid engagement.” They arrange with their agent Stocky to let them know if they have won by wearing his bowler in a specific manner when he crosses the bridge inside Wembley. If his hat is tipped to one side, it means that they have won. As the boys keep their eyes peeled for signs of Stocky, one of the boys spots him coming towards them.

He is sauntering along towards the bridge, and sure enough, his bowler hat is tipped to one side.

They have won the competition against 34 of England’s finest adult bands. For their efforts, they receive the Cassall’s Challenge Silver Shield. When it is announced on the scoreboard that the boys have won, the crowd gives out a royal cheer! One of the cyclists in the event, from Vancouver, is given the honour of coming up and conducting the boys. His name is ‘Torchy Peden.’

“It is a magnificent band, brilliant in tone, technically first-rate, and sensitive in response. The performance indeed soared no higher than Gems of Tchaikovsky-but it would be churlish to stint praise for excellent work. Arthur Delamont has been training his lads for six weeks, especially for the contest, and finally selected the 24 he considered the best grouping,” says F. Rogan, Parry-Jones, adjudicator The newspapers back home are equally impressed: “The Kitsilano Boys’ band climaxed its triumphant tour of England when it won the Cassell’s Challenge Shield for junior bands at the Crystal Palace. Competing against 34

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other bands, each of them composed of adult musicians; the youthful Vancouver aggregation thus scores the outstanding success of its career.”

The boys earned 96 out of 100 possible points, which is an almost unheard-of feat.

London critics compare them with Sousa’s band and the Guards’ bands.

One of the boys, Jim Findlay, who is nineteen, has just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics from UBC. He is the band’s publicity manager on tour. The contest is limited to twenty-four players (hence the name, “Junior”) and not because of the contestants’ age. In many of the competing bands, ages range up to eighty. The excellent woodwind section had to be dropped for the event. How did the band, which is not a brass band, take first place? Jim explains the reason they were victorious.

“Mr. Delamont’s own view is that the other bands are accustomed to outdoor playing and find it difficult to play pianissimo and double pianissimo. The contest took place indoors, and our band is used to that. Moreover, the test piece by Tchaikovsky has only about sixteen measures in double forte, and our band scored on the pianissimo work.

We were lucky!”

In the course of last night’s program, the Kitsilano band had ample opportunity to demonstrate a nuanced, melodious, resonant pianissimo as well as a significant sonorous volume. The blending of the instruments’ voices, precision, and unanimity resulted in an even, organ-like quality of tone, buoyant and flexible. The next day Arthur celebrates by marching the band to the Mansion House for tea with the Lord Mayor.

“We did it, first at Crystal Palace,” is the enthusiastic cable Arthur sends to J.W. Stewart, secretary-treasurer of the band.

“We expected you to have a prominent position, but we hardly expected you to come first,” cables Mr. Stewart back.

1968, Bench in Hyde Park “We can’t even get permission to play in the park now,” grumbles Delamont, rather matter-of-factly. At that moment, Malcolm, one of the younger boys in the band, comes along. Malcolm carries the band’s colours out in front when we march.

“Malcolm,” Mr. D remarks. “What are you doing all by yourself?”

“Oh, hi Mr. D. I’m afraid I got lost. When I turned around, the boys I was with were gone.”

“Well, I never,” Delamont cries, standing up. “You tag along with me then. You shouldn’t be out here all by yourself.”

“What’s this plaque for Mr. D,” asks Malcolm.

“Oh, that’s commemorating the Crystal Palace,” Mr. D replies.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you about when we played the Crystal Palace?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Do you want to hear about it?”

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“Sure, Mr. D,” says Malcolm jumping up on the park bench as Mr. D sits back down.

“It is in the summer of 1936 and our second band trip……..”

Mr. D tells him the complete story. When he is finished, Malcolm gushes, “Boy, that was really something, Mr. D. Why you’re famous.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. Maybe a little in the band world.”

“So how come we can’t play in London like you used to do?”

“Well, the Crystal Palace burnt down just after we finished performing.”

“Oh dear,” replies Malcolm.

“We didn’t have anything to do with it,” clarifies Delamont, clearing his throat to be perfectly clear. “But to answer your question, times have changed. You have to have permission now to play in public places, and that takes a long time. They also don’t let everyone play for safety reasons. There are a lot more people in London today than there were in the old days.”

“Isn’t there someone you can get to get us permission?”

“There used to be booking agents. We always had our own booking agent who found us places to play and travelled with us all over England solving any problems that came up.”

“What was his name,” asks Malcolm?

“His name was Stocky. Cameron Stockwell, to be exact.”

“Was he a good guy?”

“He was a great guy.”

“Sort of like Dave?”

“Ya, sort of like Dave.”

“Dave’s a good guy, I would say. The guys all like him.”

“Yes, Dave’s a good guy, but Dave is one of us. Stocky was a cockney from London.

He knew the territory and who to call to make things happen. But that was a long time ago, young man. Come on. We better go.”

They both get up and walk away. After a few blocks, they come across what looks like an abandoned theatre, all boarded up.

“What’s this place,” asks Malcolm.

“I don’t know,” replies Arthur. “Wait a minute, there’s a sign-up top, The Astoria.

Well, I’ll be,” exclaims Delamont in amazement.

“What is it, Mr. D?” “I do believe it is an old vaudeville theatre called The Astoria. We played there once.”

“What’s vaudeville Mr. D?” “What, you don’t know what vaudeville is. Your education is surely lacking, young man. I guess we have time for one more story.”

They find another bench and sit down, and Arthur tells him the story of vaudeville and his band.

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September 10, 1936, Brixton-Astoria Cinema, London

The band is booked into three concerts daily at the Brixton - Astoria Cinema. On their first night, the Mayor and Mayoress of Lambeth, as the civic heads of the borough, come to the cinema to welcome the boys backstage. Grabbing a microphone as the curtain parts, the mayor is greeted with warm applause. He goes on to congratulate the management of the theatre for showing initiative in being the first to arrange a public appearance on stage in London of these young ‘ambassadors of empire.’ Arthur looks resplendent in white trousers and a blue jacket with white trim along the lapel.

“Do you want to know what Stocky said of our performance?”

“Sure.”

“I think perhaps that one of their triumphs was at the Brixton Astoria Cinema. The week before the boys appeared there, the cinema had celebrated its seventh birthday and had put on a colossal stage show without any hope of it being profitable; it is looked upon as a ‘birthday gift’ to their patrons. The boys had to follow this terrific attraction, and right from the first day, they had the audience eating out of their hands. Even hardboiled cinema managers came to listen to the boys’ playing classics, popular tunes, rags and even hymns-an unheard of thing! In a cinema which held over 4,000 and they

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went away saying, “It was like a gentle breeze on a hot summer’s day listening to such wonderful playing.”

“Wow,” exclaims Malcolm. “Did you ever get any letters from people who heard the band?”

“Oh yes. Back home, I used to get letters all the time.”

July 8, 1939, the band’s third trip to England The boys arrive in Liverpool and are taken through the Mersey River Tunnel to boarding houses or theatrical ‘digs’ in Birkenhead on Clifton Road. The band has two places, and in one, all the meals are served. On this trip, the boys play a lot of theatre concerts. They’ve booked one night engagements at the ‘The Garrick’ in Southport on the 9th and the Argyle Theatre in Birkenhead, July 10 to 16. Most of the English stage stars started at the Garrick, including Charlie Chaplin and Harry Sauder. The boys march to city hall for a beautiful high tea with the Mayor, complete with uniformed doormen.

July 23, 1939 After leaving London, the boys go to Rhyl, a lovely spot where they play just one concert. Next, they go on to Coventry, a city rich in history, and the scene of the famous ride of Lady Godiva, although that is before they arrive! They play two performances nightly at the Hippodrome, a massive theatre with two balconies and on the morning of their arrival, they march to St. Mary’s Hall for an official reception by the Mayor and Mayoress. It is very dignified. After greetings are exchanged, the boys give their names to the man at the door of the great hall, and he solemnly announces each of them in turn - they feel very ritzy! They are sure that they could have played all night from the reception, but schedules are schedules, and theirs is a busy one.

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Sunday July 30 The boys travel to Liverpool to play a week of bookings at the Shakespeare Theatre.

The boys are on the same program as Two Ton Tessie O’Shea. The concerts are such a success that a man in the first show offers them two buses for Tuesday afternoon to go wherever they want.

Sunday August 13

The boys leave Worthing for Bath via Portsmouth on the train. They have two houses again in Bath: ‘Chequers’ and ‘Citizen House.’ Both are 18th-century houses used by actors and actresses on the legitimate stage. Clean but lots of dry rot, and one of the boys put his foot through the floor, knocking some plaster off the ceiling in the room below.

Arthur and Stocky, at first, are not happy until they realize the extent of the dry rot.

June 8-16, 1950, Blackpool

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NOTES:

Blackpool seems like one big circus to the boys. Everything is entertainment; it is England’s Coney Island. The boys play two 45 minute concerts daily at 7:30 and 9:30.

Between shows one evening, the boys and Mr. D all go to the Winter Garden, where they dance in full uniform in a beautiful gigantic ballroom to a lovely band.

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It is quite a sight to look down from the balcony and see the scarlet capes on the dance floor below. Next, they are taken to an opera house which is next door to see a variety show. On Friday, they are all invited to the circus, located at the base of the Blackpool Tower, part of the Palace Theatre complex. At one point, the circus ring sinks out of sight and in a minute, there is a vast swimming pool. Girls swim out from under waterfalls at the side and put on a swimming show. It is magnificent!

July 30, 1950, London, Golders Green and Wood Green Vaudeville Theatres

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All over London and in every subway station, giant billboards announce the boys, making them think they are considered pretty big shots. The boys all have ultra-modern dressing rooms and are paged before they go on stage. On August 3, the boys had their picture taken in front of the Victoria monument in the same pose the 1930s boys had taken.

On August 4, their boss, Harold Fielding, is in the audience for one of their shows at Golders Green. When not playing, the boys visit Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, go to the movies and enjoy the sights of London. Mr. D has been in a good mood as he always is when they play in large theatres because the boys do their best, and he can put it over so well. (Evan MacKinnon ’1950, businessman) In August and during the first three weeks of September, engagements include Bolton, Camborne and weeklong bookings in Bath (the Parade Gardens), Peterborough (the Embassy Theatre), Manchester (Belle Vue Kings Hall), the Harringay Horse Show and Dublin (Theatre Royal).

“Those sound like they were great days,” exclaims Malcolm.

“The 1930s, 1940s and 1950s were the halcyon days of my band. It was in these pretelevision years that Britain’s great Moss-Empire theatre chain in the UK was big

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business. With two shows nightly in every British city, the chain booked acts of impressive variety, everything from acrobats and jugglers to comedians, singers and animal trainers (much like the shows in Vancouver’s old Pantages Theatre in the early years when I played trumpet in the pit orchestra). In all this, the Vancouver Boys’ Band received top billing as the Kits Band is called abroad. These were exciting times to be in the professional entertainment business—and if truth be told, several of the ‘boys’ were underage for stage-work. You had to be over fourteen years of age to legally perform on the British stage.” Michael Hadley 1953, the fifth tour of England and the continent On this trip, except for a couple of embankment concerts in London, the boys play entirely in vaudeville theatres. This is all fine by the boys, as they only have to show up for two shows nightly at whatever theatre they are playing, and the rest of the time, they have fun roaming each city and exploring English culture. They are again booked into the Empire chain of theatres which stretches from one end of England to the other.

They perform two shows nightly at 6:15 and at 8:15, Monday through Saturday. Sunday is always a free day when they will travel to their next engagement. The boys play in so many theatres that Gerry Deagle, one of the boys, says he will never forget the smell of the greasepaint. Even today, when he goes to one of the grand old theatres like the Orpheum, if he takes his seat early, Gerry swears he gets a whiff of that mystique and can feel all the performers who’ve played the theatre down through the years.

When the boys get to London, they go to Pall Mall. All the decorations are up, and a carriage goes by with the Queen and Prince Philip. The band arrives in England on June 6, Ron Wood’s birthday, so he becomes legal. The child labour act stipulates that you must be fourteen.

Once in the UK, the boys fall into ‘theatre routine:’ travel by train or bus and settle into a new city on Sunday; gather Monday mornings at the theatre with the other acts and the theatre director; rehearse, play their nightly shows and then—once a gruelling week is over—move on to another town; thus they criss-cross the UK for four months.

When they arrive on Sunday night, always in a strange city, in Manchester, for example, the boys are given their billet’s address, and they set off with their bags to find it. Ron Wood and Michael Hadley are always billeted together, and Michael remembers the two of them, barely turned fourteen, setting off with Mr. D’s admonition.

“Be at rehearsal at 10 a.m. at the Hippodrome on Monday!” And that was it! They are on their own and head off into the night. The following day, they go to the theatre wherever it happens to be—the Hippodrome in London or the Palace in Blackpool. This routine remains essentially the same throughout the 1953 concert tour.

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NOTES:

Michael Hadley and Ron Wood

(Michael Hadley 1950-’53, Professor of German Literature.)

June 15 to the 20 The boys play the Sunderland Empire Theatre in Sunderland, and then it is back to London for a few days of park concerts on the London Embankment. The boys see lots of stars on the theatrical stage in London including, Kay Starr, Bob Hope and Abbot and Costello. (Ed Silva-White 1953-‘55) July 13 to 18 They play the Bristol Hippodrome Theatre, the Derby Hippodrome from July 20 to 25, the Manchester Hippodrome from July 27 to August 1, the Leicester Palace Theatre August 3 to 8, and then back to London where they are booked into the London Empire Theatre, Wood Green from August 10 to the 15.

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August 17 to 22 The boys play the London Empire, Shepherd’s Bush theatre, and then from August 24 to 29, they play the London Empire Hackney theatre.

Then it is off to Bournemouth for a day and then a week’s engagement at the Palace Theatre in Blackpool from August 31 to September 5. Arthur insists on top billing in the theatres, and the posters of the day always show the band’s name in the largest

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print. Being generally top bill, they are the last act that involves approximately 40 minutes of solid playing.

The boys are educated in all aspects of the professional music business.

Over three and one-half months in the Old Country, the boys play 175 stage, theatre and concert performances. While in London, they find time to play before a crowd of 40,000 at Wembley Stadium. In Blackpool, the boys draw 3,500 to a concert, while crooner Frank Sinatra sings for only a few hundred spectators at a competing theatre.

The boys are educated in all aspects of the professional music business. Kenny Douglas, one of the boys, handles copyrights because there were copyrights on music back in those days. He has to estimate the number of people in the audience. After every concert, Kenny keeps a tab on which is listed what they play. He does all the copyrights, two shows a day, six days a week. On the seventh day, they travel. Between Arthur and Kenny, they will estimate the number of people at each concert. If there is a collection taken, they have to pay just dues. Arthur takes care of it.

This tour sets the band’s record for the most significant number of professional engagements. It is also generally considered the second most well-balanced of all of Arthur’s bands, second only to his 1936 band, which won the top prize at the Crystal Palace.

Stocky and his wife Ginger are both there to see them off when the boys depart London for Southampton. Stocky says to the boys in his usual witty fashion, “Boys, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart and from my wife’s bottom too!”

Arthur’s tours to the Old Country are educational to the boys in so many ways. It makes many want to pursue musical careers, but to others, it is a deciding factor in not choosing music as a career. In Blackpool, the boys play at the Palace Theatre. Jack Parnell, who is the British Stan Kenton, is at the Winter Gardens Ballroom. The boys have a larger audience than they do, and the same is true when Frank Sinatra was at the Winter Gardens, and they are back at the Palace. Several boys hang out with some of their Winter Gardens band members, including their drummer, Phil Siemens. Most of the week, after their late show, the boys go backstage at the Winter Gardens and wait until they are finished and then go down the street to an all-night fish and chip joint and gab for what seems to be hours. For Ron Wood, this is a turning point. After hearing and seeing their lifestyle, Ron decides to become a banker like his uncle.

“You sure played in a lot of vaudeville theatres, Mr. D,” exclaims Malcolm.

“We sure did, Malcolm. Come on. We better be going.”

The following day at the youth hostel

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Malcolm tells the other boys about meeting Mr. D and the stories he told him about the band’s performances in London on past trips. He also tells them that the band marched to Mansion House to have tea with the Lord Mayor after winning the Crystal Palace in 1936.

“Geez, wouldn’t it be great if we could do that,” exclaims one of the boys.

“Why can’t we,” asks another? “We can get the band together and set up into march formation and head off down the road.”

“Ya, just like we did at Expo 67 last summer,” remarks another boy.

“Dave almost had a heart attack chasing across the fairgrounds trying to stop us,” says another.

“This is different. No one has told us not to do it. In Montreal, we were warned not to do it by fair officials.”

“That’s true.”

“Let’s go ask Mr. D.” So you really want to,” asks Mr. D when a group of the boys talk to him? “It would be fun, I must admit.”

It isn’t long before all the boys have gathered out front on the street in marching formation with their instruments. They march off down one of London’s busiest streets on the drumbeat, with Malcolm out in front leading the way and Mr. D in the middle.

“This isn’t the way to Mansion House,” exclaims Mr. D. “Where’s he taking us?”

“It’s all right, Mr. D. He knows what he is doing. Just let him lead the way.”

Before long, the boys arrive at Hyde Park, and Malcolm points his baton to where the Crystal Palace used to stand. The band starts playing, Congratulations, a popular song on the British pop charts that summer that Delamont had just bought in London, as they march by.

After a few more turns and corners, the boys arrive at the old Brixton-Astoria Cinema, and again Malcolm points his baton at the cinema, and the band begins to play, Congratulations. Malcolm has managed to find out where some other old vaudeville theatres are located in London, and the boys march by them all playing, Congratulations, for the old man. They even march by the BBC studios, and the routine is the same.

It isn’t long before they hear, “Stop, stop, you can’t do that,” yells a frantic Dave Mackenzie as he catches up with the band. He couldn’t find anyone at the youth hostel, and someone told him the band marched off towards Hyde Park.

“You’ll all get arrested and maybe even deported,” shouts Dave, “you have to have a permit.” The boys give him a hard time for being a poor sport. Arthur knows Dave is right and motions for Malcolm to march the band back to the youth hostel, playing, Congratulations, all the way back.

Back in front of the youth hostel

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George Ellenton needs a cigarette, so he goes down to the urinal nearby, to the farthest urinal and lights up a cigarette. In a moment, he hears, “George, put that out!” Mr. D didn’t particularly care whether you smoked or not – just as long as you didn’t smoke in uniform. He has followed George all the way downstairs and into the urinal. It seems like every time George tries to grab a smoke with his sweater or uniform on, Delamont catches him. He probably has to go to the urinal too, but George seems like he is always looking over his shoulder.

The Inman’s are back in London, and Keith and I keep vying for the attention of Robyn. As I said, Robyn and I wind up in a taxi one night with her brother Bill opposite taking pictures. We attend the original cast performance of Fiddler on the Roof starring Topol, which has just come out. Another night we see the musical Hair. And on our last night in London, we see Julie Christie and Warren Beatty in the movie Darling. The movie ends with a flower lady selling flowers out on a London street. When we come out of the theatre, there is that same flower lady selling flowers. It is a magical time!

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We all go to Carnaby Street and buy paisley sports coats and jackets with the British ensign all over them. We get coloured granny glasses. When we don’t have our uniforms on, we look more like Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band than the Vancouver Boy’s Band. There are young people everywhere riding motor scooters and others riding motorcycles wearing black leather jackets. It is the decade of the mods and the rockers. Then, each night we go back to our youth hostel and listen to Radio Caroline, which is aimed at our generation, pop culture and most notably, Beatles music.

After London on the bus to Dartmouth “You know times have changed. You have to follow the rules. If the police found out or anyone complained, you could have been kicked out of the country,” Dave scolds Delamont as they sit together in the front of the bus.

“I’ve been kicked out of the country before, replies Delamont as he turns away from Dave and rests his head on a pillow, soon falling asleep.

“He’s been acting really strange lately,” Dave whispers to Colin, the bus driver. “And, it is not like him to fall asleep in the daytime. He used to criticize the boys when they

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asleep in the daytime.”

“He is 76 years old,” says Colin.

“And we did so get kicked out of the country, grumbles Delamont.

“I thought you were asleep,” replies Dave.

Sunday, August 27, 1939, Great Yarmouth, England The boys are up at 7:00 a.m. to catch the train for Great Yarmouth. In Great Yarmouth, they have to walk three-quarters of a mile with their suitcases to get to their digs on South Nelson Street. The landlady’s husband had been a member of the Sir Ernest Shackelton Expedition that explored Antarctica. The boys quickly change and head straight for the bandstand for a 3:00 concert. The bandstand is adjacent to Wellington Pier. Both shows that day are very successful. Stocky is starting to talk seriously about the boys going home on September 2 as the international situation has not improved.

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Monday, August 28 After their afternoon concert, the boys hear unwelcome news. Stocky pulls Arthur aside and tells him the British Government wants the band out of England immediately.

“Arrangements have been made for transportation to Liverpool on Friday; you sail for home on Saturday.”

Two coaches and a lorry cost 18 pounds each. It is only through the High Commissioner of British Columbia in London that they can get the coaches. Arthur says to the boys, “Unless things improve tremendously, we are sure of going home.”

Tuesday, August 29 Arthur and the boys continue to put on concerts with much success, and the international news continues to be discouraging. Countries concerned are recalling their ships or sending them to neutral ports. The British Government issues emergency regulations regarding wartime.

After dinner, Arthur talks with some of the boys and tells them he wants to get back to Canada pretty quickly and that he is trying to arrange a series of concerts across Canada for them.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the concerts go very well. Great Yarmouth thrives on its tourist trade and fishing. Fishing is not good now because their great market (Germany, Russia, and Lithuania) has disappeared. After the boys play “The King” at the end of their evening concert on Thursday, the crowd gives them three cheers.

Stocky getting the boys on the bus

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On Friday morning, two coaches and a van come for the boys at 8:30 a.m. It is no surprise: Hitler has invaded Poland! Everyone is glad they are leaving. Two buses are sent to Great Yarmouth to transport the band to Liverpool, where the ‘SS Athenia’ is at anchor awaiting her sailing time. This arrangement does not please Mr. D, and he weighs the possibility of using the buses to go to Southampton, where the RMS Empress of Britain is awaiting her passengers to Quebec City. The Empress is a CPR ship, as is the SS Duchess of Bedford used for their June crossing, so their tickets will be valid on it. Mr. D must have done some quick research and reasons that being a much larger, newer and faster ship (42,000 tons vs. 14,000 tons), crossing on the Empress will be safer, and there will be more engagements for the band. In addition, the grim memory of his boyhood experience on the RMS Empress of Ireland likely gives him serious pause. His intuition must have made the decision for him.

The boys arrive in London at about 2:30 pm. It is not only the boys who are excited-the news has fired up the whole population. General mobilization has been proclaimed, and army vans and guns are on the roads. The boys in the band are afforded an excellent view of a great metropolis preparing for war. Their buses pass endless streams of vehicles carrying children to places of safety in the country. The sky is dotted with silver sausage balloons, and most of the buildings are walled with sandbags.

The boys leave London at 3:15. Stocky cannot come to Southampton with the boys as he is an Air Raid Precaution Warden. The boys all shake hands with him and give him three cheers. Appearing quite touched and fighting back the tears, he tells the boys that he has been quite worried about their safety for the last ten days and that it is only through Mr. Mac Adams, who personally took the safety of the boys under his wing, and

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himself that they are able to secure places on the Empress of Britain.

In Southampton, the boys experience their third black-out. They arrive at 9:00 pm and go straight to the Empress. Still hungry after eating a light meal of meat sandwiches and coffee on board, Arthur gives them each a shilling, and they spend the night in a strange city roaming the dark, rainy streets in search of a restaurant. Needless to say, they find one, a fish and chip shop. Anti-aircraft guns are mounted on top of the freight warehouse on the dock, and the boys are cautioned not to open any doors on deck because the enemy might see them. Most of the guys think Arthur is an excellent leader.

He is highly respected. Arthur has a one-track mind, though: the trip! He doesn’t show any outward signs of concern. When Stocky came up to him in Great Yarmouth and said to him, “The British Government wants you home,” he just took his advice. His mind was always on the band. All he wants to do is play music. He is a highly focused person.

He is very Victorian, Salvation Army trained. There is a ‘singleness of purpose’ there.

(Paul Jagger 1935-1939, businessman) The following day after a hearty breakfast, the boys are allowed off the boat until 11:45. Many walk up the main street in search of a newspaper. The news is that England has given Germany twenty-four hours to take her troops out of Poland and that Polish troops are holding their own.

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NOTES:

The boys embark on the Empress of Britain on September 2 at 3 pm, the same day the SS Athenia leaves port. The Empress crosses the channel and visits Cherbourg at 9 pm, where it picks up a bunch of Americans who have been touring Europe with their own cars. The harbour of Cherbourg is very shallow, so the ship has to dock at the end of a long jetty protruding out to deeper water. That jetty is lined with luxury automobiles, as far as the eye can see--Packards, Rolls Royces, Cadillacs, Lincolns, La Salles, Hudsons, etc.--enough to impress the Depression-era boys greatly! Many cars are winched onboard-- into the hold, lashed down on the tennis courts, and even in the drained swimming pools. Those for which there is no space are simply abandoned. (Carson Manzer, 1939, chartered accountant) September 3.

Britain and France declare war on Germany. The Athenia, which leaves Liverpool at the same time as the Empress departs Southampton, is sunk by a German U-boat just out of Liverpool. When news of the Athenia reaches the boys, they are greatly saddened because a contingent of American art students they had befriended on the journey had been on board. When news of the Athenia reaches Vancouver, the boys’ parents think the boys have been lost, as it has been widely reported that they had booked the Athenia for their journey home. The Empress remains in the Cherbourg harbour overnight, and under cover of darkness, at least a hundred (a guess) Polish peasants swarm on board and conceal themselves in the forward hold. There are people of all ages, some families--none with luggage, other than what they can carry on their backs. Of course, they have no tickets, and it looks as if they are to be forcibly put ashore for a while. Also, there is talk of delaying the sailing so the ship, painted a brilliant white, can be camouflaged. However, likely, the news of the ‘Athenia’ sinking off the north coast of Ireland influences the Captain’s decision to “make a run for it.” The peasants are allowed to remain on board. (Carson Manzer, chartered accountant)

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To avoid encountering the submarine which torpedoed the ‘Athenia,’ the Captain sets off southwest, down the Bay of Biscay and off the coast of Spain. He reasons that the submarine likely plans to proceed south, down the west coast of Ireland, to intercept the boys’ ship had it taken the usual direct route to Canada, in about the same area that the ‘Lusitania,’ had been torpedoed in 1915 with the loss of eleven hundred lives.

Daily morning boat drills commenced once safely at sea, zigzagging constantly but at full speed of 26 knots (compared with a U boat’s estimated top speed of 10 knots). (Carson Manzer 1939, chartered accountant) Onboard the Empress, windows and portholes are painted black, lights are forbidden on deck, and the passengers are compelled to wear lifejackets continually until the ship reaches the estuary of St. Lawrence. Arthur gives Lillie half of their money to put into her money belt, and he keeps the other half in his belt in case anything happens, and they are separated. The boys play concerts to calm the passengers.

Many of Arthur’s boys on this trip, afterwards, go back and fly bombing missions

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over Germany and Mozzies in the Battle of Britain and pay the supreme sacrifice. It is hard. Delamont always plays a hymn from then on, in their memory at all his concerts.

Still on the bus to Dartmouth “I’d like to book the band into Worthing or Sunderland or even Shanklin,” tells Dave to Colin.

“We’ve been to Shanklin,” mutters Mr. D. They both look at him.

1934, Shanklin, England

In Shanklin, Isle of Wight, a seaside resort, the band has a week of engagements in a bandstand at the end of the pier. Also on the dock is a high diving platform, rising 70 feet into the air. One afternoon, some of the boys dare Dallas Richards, who has done some diving, to dive off the platform. They pass around a hat and collect about one pound, which is a lot of money. Dal climbs up the pole to the perch. When he reaches the top, he realizes he has to dive into the sea, making it a little further. Dal makes the dive, coming up under the pier, and quickly climbs up a ladder and collects one pound.

He then makes a couple of more dives off the platform just for fun. That evening while the boys are playing a concert in the bandstand, a short man with one leg, wearing a football helmet and covered in asbestos, comes up on stage and begins to rant and rave at Arthur. Arthur stops the band, and the man continues, “You call yourselves professionals? One of your boys ruined my act by diving off the diving platform three or four times. I do it professionally with a helmet,” he says.

Well, if there is anything Arthur does not stand for, it is anyone berating any of his boys! He lets the man have it with both barrels, and the man quickly hurries off stage.

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The boys, of course, had not known that the diving platform was part of someone’s act, or they never would have coaxed Dal to go up the pole. They did not do it again.

July 1936, Northampton The boys often encounter celebrities on their tours. The boys are never shy about meeting them. The boys are playing in Northampton. The Ambrose band is playing in the afternoon in a vaudeville theatre. They are the hottest band in England. Ted Heath plays trombone for the band. Some weeks later, a few of the boys are in the Selmer sales office in London, and Ted Heath is there, trying a trombone. Dal Richards goes up to him and says, “Mr. Heath, would you play something for us?” Heath replies, “Oh no, I’m not a solo man; I’m just a section man.” So, he keeps trying his trombone.

He is pretty polite but not interested. That is before he has his own band. He became very successful; late starter!

Summer 1934, London Once in London, two boys, Jack Bensted and Dal Richards, always try to get into highclass restaurants whenever they can. Stocky booked many dance bands in those days, all over England, really big-time acts. The boys are a big-time act! Jack and Dal slip the head waiter a little something to allow them into some of the higher-priced restaurants in London so they can listen to the orchestra. They do that in Montreal at the Normandy Roof at the Mont-Royal Hotel. They do it at the Kit Kat Club in London.

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At the Kit Kat Club, they listen to Joe Loss and his Band. Jack and Dal are in the Kit Kat Club the evening Joe Loss makes his first BBC broadcast. BBC used to have one and a half-hour of remote broadcasts every night. Every night, they go to a different club: the Dorchester, the Kit Kat Club, the Embassy, and The Savoy. Dal tells Stocky about this the next day, and Stocky says, “You mean they didn’t charge you?”

“No! They just sat us at a table and said, ‘By the way, boys, when the band starts playing, make lots of noise!” It was because half the place was empty during mid-week. So then Stocky asks, “Did you get to meet Joe Loss?” And they, of course, reply, “No!” To which Stocky replies, “If I had known you were going there, I would have called ahead and got you an introduction because I book Joe Loss.” So he did handle some pretty big name bands. They also hear Jack Jackson at the Dorchester.” (Dal Richards, big band leader) “You have quite a cockney accent,” points out Dave to Colin.

“Can you understand me?”

“I can, but I wonder if some of the boys might have trouble understanding British accents.”

Mr. D opens his eyes but doesn’t say anything. Then he closes them again.

1936, London

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The nice thing about the Old Country is that the boys can understand the English but can the English understand the boys? Hector McKay tries to contact his mother’s two elderly cousins in Cornwall by telephone from London. He is talking to the hotel page boy about travelling to Cornwall. The page boy says, “I’ll look it up for you, sir!” He has a bible and says, “Lord love us, sir! Four pounds nineteen and six! But you can come phone for half a crown. I’ll get the number for you!” He’s busy getting the number.

Meanwhile, there is this old retired army officer who they are sure must have been from India. A great many of them are into their cups. He is drinking from a small glass, probably whiskey or gin. All of a sudden, he hears this voice. He is on the phone with someone who says, “All I can hear is it’s a Mister McKay phoning from London.”

The old warrior can see Hector’s frustration, so he raises his voice, “Surely they can’t understand that Canadianese! Let me put that call through for you,” and they didn’t! The page boy sympathizes and says, “Ah, it’s always the way, sir. It’s always the way. But you tried anyway.”

After we were out of earshot of the elderly gentleman, who by this time had shuffled off to bed, Hector says, “Gosh, he was pretty drunk, wasn’t he?” The page boy says, “Drunk! Not heem, sir.

He’s crackers! They’s paying to keep him here!”

1968, Dartmouth

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Our bus finally reaches Dartmouth arriving by the upper road. We boys all get out and ready to march back down the main road to let everyone know we have arrived.

It’s great to be back at Dartmouth! It isn’t long before the sound of band music is in the air, and the townsfolk are all coming out to greet us, boys, again. We are staying in the same hall, just up from the boat quay, but we march down to the boat quay and along the riverside towards the castle, finally marching back through the ranks at Bayard’s Cove and back along the river to the park. Once back at the park, we are free until our 7pm concert in the bandstand.

90

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That evening, the concert was spectacular. Delamont is in fine form talking to the audience between numbers as only he can do. He doesn’t miss a chance to go down and dance with the ladies as the band plays on. Later, it is time to show off. We play a trombone trio called Whirligig, and a trumpet trio called Trumpet’s Wild. The Teddy Bear’s Picnic is a solo for the sousaphone section. Then, The Hunting Scene depicts the call to the hunt with an echo placed strategically in the woods and then the chase. These are our show tunes, and the audience loves them.

We follow up with In A Persian Market, which takes the audience to the middle east and then Overture of Overtures which offers bits and pieces of famous classics which the audience all know. It is a brilliant concert, and the audience is thrilled to have us back, and we are delighted to be back.

We see the girls in the audience, so we quickly change and head outside after the concert back at the hall.

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We’re Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band We hope you will enjoy the show Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Sit back and let the evening go Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band It’s wonderful to be here It’s certainly a thrill You’re such a lovely audience We’d like to take you home with us We’d love to take you home This time when we leave the hall, things are different. Instead of going off in groups with the girls following in groups, the boys pare with a girl until everyone is gone except me, Jane Baker, and someone else. Jane has brought her sister Maria to meet me as she promised. The three of us head towards the river.

Maria is lovely. She has jet black hair and the Italian in her shows like I hoped it would. Their mother is Italian and their father English. Great combination, I think! We go to a pub around the corner where I meet their brother Robert. He is a sailor on leave, so they are all happy to be together. Jane goes off to see if she can find the boy in the band she likes and win his affections. Maria and I stay talking with Robert for a while, and then we also go off on our own for a walk to Bayard’s Cove.

The following day the band’s up early and out to play a junk music concert around town. We pass the hat and then go back to the hall to divide the spoils. Maria had just gotten back from Italy, so she isn’t working yet and has lots of free time. We walk out to Dartmouth Castle, accompanied by Bill Inman taking pictures.

92

One Beautiful Summer NOTES:

Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you Tomorrow I’ll miss you Remember I’ll always be true And then while I’m away, I’ll write home every day And I’ll send all my loving to you All my loving I will send to you All my loving Darling, I’ll be true When we aren’t playing our three concerts each day, there is lots to do. We rent rowboats and row out to the castle. We take a ferryboat ride up to the next town, Totnes.

We climb up the hill behind Dartmouth, which affords a magnificent view of the river’s mouth and all the surrounding countryside. It is magical!

One Beautiful Summer NOTES:

Let me take you down ‘Cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields Nothing is real And nothing to get hung about Strawberry Fields forever Living is easy with eyes closed Misunderstanding all you see It’s getting hard to be someone But it all works out It doesn’t matter much to me Let me take you down ‘Cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields Nothing is real And nothing to get hung about Strawberry Fields forever

93

94

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Picture yourself in a boat on a river With tangerine trees and marmalade skies Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly A girl with kaleidoscope eyes Cellophane flowers of yellow and green Towering over your head Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes And she’s gone Lucy in the sky with diamonds Lucy in the sky with diamonds Lucy in the sky with diamonds Dartmouth is so small that we often run into everyone we know once or twice each day. Mrs. Tucker is always lots of fun, whether she is just walking down the street to do her shopping or coming by the hall to see if everyone has everything they need. Her daughter Kay, when not working at the bank, can be seen with John. Jane is still trying to woo the boy in the band who doesn’t seem to be interested. It still perplexes us all why he isn’t because we all adore Jane. She is the life of the party, and everyone likes her except it seems this one boy. Mr. and Mrs. Pettie are in Dartmouth for the regatta.

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Mrs. Pettie and Mrs. Tucker get along fabulously. Both have the same bubbly, outgoing personality. Mr. and Mr. Pettie remind us boys of Stiller and Meara, the comedy duo.

The Inman’s come down as well but don’t stay. It is nice having them all around after the concert in the evening, but after all the boys scatter with their prospective girlfriends, they may have felt not needed, I don’t know. I was busy, and Keith was active with Maggi. Anyway, they soon carry on exploring the small towns of southern England in their rented motor car. Years later, Robyn tells me she can’t figure out what we all saw in Dartmouth. She was more comfortable, I think, in the capital cities of Europe than in the small towns. More sophistication, I guess.

We never see much of Colin, the bus driver or Dave in Dartmouth. Everything runs smoothly in Dartmouth, so we guess they aren’t needed so much either. One day, we run into Mr. D on the main street wearing a brand new maroon-coloured cardigan sweater.

“What do you think boys,” he asks, showing it off?

“It looks great, Mr. D,” we all reply, and it does.

High tea is another fun thing to do at Dartmouth. It is usually served with scones and Devon cream, which are excellent. It is a good thing we were young because it must have been full of calories when I think back. But then we were running over the hills and marching around town all day, so it didn’t bother us.

As our time grows near to leave, we are all missing Dartmouth already. There is no sign of any blond-haired sailors in town during the Regatta. We guess the Swedish Navy has gone home. It has become our home away from home, full of friendly faces and warm hearts. On our last night at the concert in the park, we all do our best Carnaby Street fashion which adds a natural lift to our show numbers like Georgy Girl, Windy, Mexico, Macarena, Congratulations and the others.

96

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Jane, Maria, Kay and Mrs. Tucker

The following day, there were many sad faces in front of the hall and around our bus.

Many pictures are taken, and promises are made to come back, but I am not sure how many are ever fulfilled.

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None of us are giving much thought to the last leg of the trip, Scotland, where there are many more concerts to play and people to meet.

On the bus up the west coast to Scotland “Mr. D, we’re going to drive through Blackpool on our way to Scotland,” says Dave.

“I’m not going to get out,” he mutters. “Too many memories.”

“Did you ever see the Ted Heath Orchestra at the Winter Gardens,” asks Colin Delamont looks at him like he’s crazy.

“I guess not,” replies Colin. “They were amazing!”

“It’s not his kind of music. He just likes band music,” explains Dave.

1955, June, Blackpool

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The boys are off to Blackpool upon arrival in Liverpool, booked for a week’s engagement at the Palace Theatre. After their two nightly concerts, the boys go to the Winter Gardens to hear the Ted Heath Orchestra play. The members of the Heath band adopt the boys and they have a free invitation to come back stage anytime.

Bobby Pratt is the lead trumpet player in Ted Heath’s Band. What a sound! That’s what turns Art Tusvik on when he hears him playing at the ‘Winter Gardens’ in Blackpool in 1955. The Ted Heath band plays dances at the Winter Gardens. One marathon dance they play is six hours long. Bobby’s sound is remarkable. At the end of the sixhour dance, he is still playing screamers. He has as big a sound on double G as he does on middle C, an unbelievable sound. When they record, they have one mike in each section. They have to put him about five feet behind the rest of the guys. Jimmy Coombes (trombone) sits in front of him. Jimmy figures that that’s where his hearing problems began.

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NOTES:

photo Bobby Pratt

They would say to Bobby, “Take it easy, Bobby. You don’t have to work so hard.” Bobby would just laugh and say, “Oh, let’s have some fun!” He died tragically!

He left Ted’s band to do session work in London. Went off to do a Frank Jackfield recording, and he didn’t turn up for it. The guys ask, “Where’s Bobby?” Three days later, he turns up at home, neatly dressed. His wife asks him, “How did it go?” He replies, “First take!” As far as he is concerned, he had been there and done the take. He had a ‘wet brain’ from alcoholism. Ultimately, he set up the chairs in his kitchen and gassed himself in front of his gas stove. It was just a tragedy! (Art Tusvik 1953 to 58 professional musician) Henry McKenzie is Ted Heath’s top clarinet player at that time. He wants to trade clarinets with Earl Hobson because he wants the Buffet Earl is playing. But he can only offer him a Boosey & Hawkes. It never happens because Earl is afraid of having a problem at customs on the way back. The boys see Johnny Dankworth as well! A bunch of them hire a plane and go to Paris for five or six days. A lot of the boys grow up on that trip, and that is good. (Earl Hobson 1955, music supervisor/conductor) 1958 London, seventh trip to England and the continent

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NOTES:

Several boys go to the Hammersmith Palais, a ballroom and entertainment venue in London, to hear Ted Heath’s band. Art Tusvik sees this girl run out onto the floor to dance, and he likes what he sees. Kay is the daughter of Jimmy Coombes, Ted Heath’s bass trombone player. Art had introduced himself to Jimmy in 1955 in Blackpool. Art gets his foot caught in the bus door on the ‘58 trip and has to go into the hospital. He stays with the Coombes in their house when he comes out and gets to know Kay. Art goes back to live in England, from 1959 through 1963, marries Kay and plays professionally. He never does play in Ted’s band, but he knows many of the guys who did. Art does a Christmas show in Brighton with David Whitfield. It is called ‘David Whitfield on Ice’ and marks the end of his career. One of his hit records is ‘Cara Mia.’ Ted is a taciturn man and not that easy to talk to. He is just reticent. When he is conducting his band, if someone is having trouble, he will go and stand right in front of him, like a death ray.

You don’t want him standing in front of you. His band is so good, so precise. (Art Tusvik 1953-’58, professional musician)

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NOTES:

Art Tusvik, Ken Sotvedt and Ted Lazenby

Don Lusher

Once the boys meet Ted Heath and his band, they (like their predecessors) have an open invitation to visit them whenever they want. Ted Heath is the biggest thing in Europe. The boys are all introduced to him. (Major Peter Erwin 1951-’58, Band Director 15th Field Regiment Band)

102 NOTES:

The Palace as it looks in Mr. Ds memory

One Beautiful Summer Don Lusher is the best trombone player in England by far. He plays the first trombone in the Ted Heath Band. He is worlds above anyone else, heads and shoulders. Ted Lazenby, on the 1958 trip to England with the Kits band, phones up Don and says to him, “Sir, I am in England with a boys’ band from Canada, and I wonder if there is any chance of taking some lessons from you while I am here?” Don says, “I don’t talk to kids, and I don’t give lessons to kids!”

Well, Ted finds out where he lives. He goes on the tube and the double-decker bus out into the country. Ted has to walk about four blocks to this little brick house with his horn.

He has his trench coat on and knocks on the door. This little pipe-smoking guy comes out, just a short little guy.

“What do you want?” Ted says, “I talked to you on the telephone.” Ted has his foot in the door by then and pushes his way inside and adds, “I really don’t think there is anyone else in England that can tell me how J.J. Johnson can play this lick. You are the only man who can tell me how to play it!” Ted kicks his case open, pulls out his trombone and plays a few notes. The guy gushes, “Where the hell did you come from? Come in, lad!” He has never heard anything like him. Ted is magical. He is so good. Ted is technically so fast. He plays the clarinet polka on his trombone so fast there is smoke coming off the slide. You would shake your head. He was so technically fast. (Brian Bolam 1950, Supervisor, Vancouver Fire Department) 1968 Blackpool

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The band’s bus arrives at the spot where the original Palace Theatre stood until 1962 by the seaside in Blackpool, and the boys all get out. Mr. D stays on the bus.

“I guess you remember it pretty well,” asks Dave of Mr. D? Not able to entice him off the bus, Dave goes off, leaving Delamont by himself, staring out the window playing his trumpet.

1950, Blackpool, the fourth trip to England and the continent The boys are playing the Palace Theatre in Blackpool in 1950, next to it is the Palladium Dance Hall, led by Alan Lerner (later of Lerner and Lowe fame), and then there is the Blackpool Circus. Between each act at the circus, thinly clad ladies come out with cards to announce the next one. Alex McLeod, one of the boys, gets to know one of these gals and becomes smitten. The band comes back to Blackpool several times during the tour.

Alex’s relationship grows and grows, to the point that he wants to marry the girl.

104 NOTES:

One Beautiful Summer He is one of the older boys, eighteen. He gets up his courage and goes to talk to Arthur and says, “I want to marry her, and I want to take her back to Canada. How can I do that? I don’t even have enough money to buy an engagement ring!”

To some people’s surprise, not to others, Arthur lends him the money to buy an engagement ring. She follows the band back to Vancouver. They are married. He becomes very successful, managing a Safeway store in North Vancouver. (Ron Wood 1946-’53, banker) 1968 Finally, Delamont relents and gets off the bus.

“I see you’ve decided to join us,” smiles Dave, who has been hanging around just in case.

“The Palace was right there next to the Dance Hall, the Tower and the Circus,” remarks Delamont.

“Too bad they have been torn down over the years,” replies Dave. “Come on. Let’s go up.”

They make their way over to a row of buildings that have replaced the Palace complex. Dave stops, but Delamont continues over to the place where the Palace once stood, smiling as if he sees someone. Dave sees him stick his right hand out as if he is shaking hands with someone. His back is to Dave, so Dave cannot see anyone.

“Hi, Mr.D.” “Hi, Donny.”

“Hi, Mr.D.” “Hi, Arnie.”

Then Delamont comes back.

“Who were you shaking hands with,” Dave asks?

“My boys,” he replies. “They’re still here. They never left.”

“Your boys?”

“How old are they?”

“The same age they were in the band.”

“Is this the first time you’ve seen them?”

“No. One or two have been showing up at most of our concerts all over England and the continent. Though this is the first time, I’ve seen Donny or Arnie.”

“Really.”

“One or two of them have been coming up and joining us on the Lost Chord at each concert as well.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“I’ll let you know later.”

Dave, feeling somewhat bewildered, asks, “Where did they go?”

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“They went inside to play the concert. The boys never left. They’ve always been here.

I just needed to open my eyes.”

“I think maybe you’ve had too much sun. We better go back to the bus,” and they both depart.

1968 Edinburgh, Scotland We arrive in Scotland and go immediately to the Eglinton Youth Hostel in Edinburgh.

Delamont isn’t too happy with the accommodations.

“I guess the boys can’t be billeted here,” he states to Dave.

“No. The Carnegie Trust is not hosting us this time.”

“Too bad. The Trust always looked after us very well.”

“I’m sure they did!”

Our first concert is in Dunfermline. Only about one hundred people attend the show.

Back at the youth hostel after the show, “Hopefully, attendance will improve for our next concerts,” reassures Dave.

That night Mr. D is back to the bed and breakfast where he is staying.

“We used to draw crowds of 2000 or 3000 in Dunfermline, and we were well looked after,” he mutters, getting into bed. Soon, he is fast asleep.

1934, Dunfermline, Scotland

106 NOTES:

One Beautiful Summer The Carnegie Trustees bring the boys to Dunfermline and pay a splendid salary. On their arrival, they are given a civic welcome and a banquet on a small scale, and Dunfermline simply adopts the boys for the time being. The crowds come from far and near, and the applause is long and loud. Garfield is in the audience when the encore, “Lead, Kindly Light,” is announced by the conductor. He can see the look of amazement on the boys’ faces as they see that vast audience rise as one man while they play two verses. When the conductor turns and sees everyone standing, he exclaims in an unsteady voice: “What reverence!” and asks all to sing a verse of it.

The boys play well, remarkably well for their years. They are engaged to come back the following summer for a more extended stay. In a short speech, Arthur says that as long as these boys live, they will never allow Scotland or the Scottish people to be sneered at or run down in their presence.

Garfield White, the band’s publicity manager, stays with five of the boys: Bernard Temoin, Ronald Atkinson, Pat Armstrong, Frank Brogan, and Douglas Stewart. When they arrive at their billet, they are met by Mrs. Cullen, the house lady who has three rooms for them, three boys in one, two in another and space for Garfield. A cozy fire is alight in the grate in each room, and in the big room, a table is spread with a sumptuous supper consisting of fish and chips, bread and butter and jam, and cakes and plenty of tea.

In another boarding house, there are eight boys. They seem to strike it very lucky.

When they arrive, the lady has bread, butter, cold beef, chips, pickled beets, scones and jam cakes and tea for them before going to bed. Boy! What a meal, and they are ready for it. They have swell rooms and absolute soft beds. Who says the Scots are tight and when they go down for breakfast, boy, Scottish porridge, sausages, bacon, eggs, toast, tea and jam. Boy, did they enjoy their week in Dunfermline! (Art Butroid, 1928-34)

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In Fred Woodcock’s words: “At the concert yesterday afternoon, we had a crowd of about 2,000, and at the evening performance, there were more than 3,000 people at the park to hear us. The concerts are a tremendous success. Of course, the shows are free. Too bad we have run out of postcards.

On our last day, we attend a tea given by the Carnegie Trust, and in the evening, we play before a crowd of 10,000. It is the largest crowd to ever attend a Dunfermline band concert.

After the concert, a couple of boys walk around and meet two Scottish lassies. They have great fun talking to them, and they get quite a kick out of the boy’s accent.

The jokes they have heard about Scottish people have no foundation at all. They are the most hospitable people the boys have encountered since they have been in the Old Country. Even at their concerts, the applause comes right from the heart. Garfield estimates that the band played to over 8,000 people in the afternoon and evening concerts on one day alone. Sitting listening to the boys in the audience, Garfield says he often hears remarks concerning the playing. Scottish people all like band music, and one day he hears two of them talking. One person says to the other, “It’s the best band we have had here this season.” The season is almost over, and that remark is made after the band has only played two numbers. The band’s concerts in Scotland are all sponsored by the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust, and they are all free.

The boys have 2000 postcards sent up from London. In 1936, when the boys return to Dunfermline, their fee is doubled.

Thousands attend their concerts during the week; in fact, they are told that it is unprecedented. The boys cannot go anywhere without being trailed by a group of youngsters demanding their autographs. After each concert, a swarm of autograph seekers invades the bandstand, and it is not an unusual sight to see one of the boys surrounded by at least a dozen children after signatures. Many people individually entertain the boys in Dunfermline, and when they leave, they all leave a host of friends behind.

1968, Edinburgh,

108 NOTES:

One Beautiful Summer The next day, the boys play two concerts at Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh beneath Edinburgh Castle, at 1pm and at 6:30. Between shows, we are free to explore the castle and Edinburgh. Keith and I meet a photographer while exploring Edinburgh Castle who takes our picture for a travel magazine. We fantasize that we are now world travellers and will have our photo in Conde Naste Magazine. Sometime after we return home, we each receive an 8x10 glossy B/W copy of the image. In the photo, we certainly look like world travellers, exhausted and all dishevelled. We look like we haven’t slept in a week, nor have our clothes been washed. Needless to say, it never appears in any travel magazine that we know of, thank goodness.

1968, Musselburgh, Scotland The next day, it is back on the bus and off to Musselburgh. Only about seventy-five people attend our concert. Then, it is back on the bus and back to Edinburgh.

“Things sure have changed,” sighs Delamont, as he falls asleep in his bed at the bed and breakfast where he is staying.

August 23, 1936, Pittencrief Park, Dunfermline

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Arthur again returns to Dunfermline, Scotland and plays two concerts daily at Pittencrieff Park as guests of the Carnegie Trust. In the mornings, Arthur has the brass section begin rehearsals for the Crystal Palace competition. When the boys make their final appearance at Pittencrieff Park, they have one of the most lavish receptions of their ten-day booking. At about twenty minutes before the program’s start, all the auditorium seats are occupied, and thousands of patrons take positions as near the band as possible. The crowd, perhaps largest ever assembled at a band performance in the park - is estimated at 6,000 and 7,000.

The boys always catch the attention of the opposite sex, and Scotland is no different.

In fact, Scottish girls are pretty amorous. One young lady asks Hector McKay, “Would you like to see the town?” They walk around for a while, and then she decides to show him lovers’ lane. He is only thirteen and scared out of his mind. He doesn’t know anything about that stuff and has to beat a hasty retreat! When they are in London, a letter arrives from this same girl. In it, she says, “One of my friends told me you are only thirteen. Is that true? I am eighteen!”

1968, Glasgow, Scotland

The following morning the boys are off to Glasgow. The concert goes well but still small crowds. The boys have a reception with the Mayor of Glasgow and then return to Edinburgh. That night, Arthur recalls, “There always seemed to be some confusion in Glasgow regarding our concerts.

For the life of me, I can’t remember what that was all about.” He is soon fast asleep.

1950 Glasgow, Scotland

110 NOTES:

One Beautiful Summer In Glasgow, the boys play park concerts in four different parks: Alexander, Linn, Victoria and Barshaw. They stay until mid-July. When Arthur and the boys arrive in Glasgow, the city has forgotten they have hired them. The mayor has gone out of town and all the councillors as well. It is ‘Glasgow Fair’ week, which means most of the factories are shut down. They forgot to tell Arthur where the boys are supposed to play. Finally, somebody scrapes up a list of parks, but they have no idea where the parks are located.

The boys literally go out onto the streets with their instruments and uniforms and ask people how to get to a particular park. People tell them to catch this or that streetcar and ask the conductor where to get off. They do that for a week. Norm Mullins says, “We could not have survived for any longer.” (Norm Mullins 1940-’50, Barrister, QC) The boys are having great fun. They can laugh about it later at a reunion when one boy says to another:

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“Do you realize that when we played in Glasgow, and we thought we were always going to the same park, we actually played at a different park each day?”

Mr. D gets very mad one day on account of the poor co-operation of the Corporation (Parks Board). They do little for the band and do not advertise their concerts. On the day of the show, they won’t let them sell postcards, so Arthur does not give them his highest level of performance and does not give encores. He sticks strictly to the printed program. He will ball out the boss the next day and see if he can shame him into letting them sell postcards. (Evan MacKinnon 1950, businessman) 1968, Aberdeen, Scotland

Edinburgh 1968

The following day at 9:30, we are off to Aberdeen, a beautiful city in Northern Scotland. There is another Mayor’s reception, and then we play a concert at 9:30 pm in the Union Terrace Gardens. The boy playing the echo in The Hunting Scene has to jump over a gate coming back and doesn’t quite make it. He breaks the gate in two and falls on his trumpet, damaging it. Then, it’s back to Edinburgh.

The next day, the band travels to a very picturesque town, Anstruther. We play a concert in the town Hall for three hundred people. It is an excellent concert. The boys are all billeted out around town and have a wonderful sleep in double beds with quilt mattresses.

The following day, it is off again. This time to Dundee, it is on to Perth, where the band plays in a tattoo. The White Helmets perform on their motorcycles. The boys play a series of concerts across Scotland each day over two weeks. Sometimes they are billeted in the town, but they return to their youth hostel if Edinburgh is close. Aberfeldy and Inverness are next.

112 NOTES:

One Beautiful Summer When left on our own in Edinburgh for a day, there is always lots to do. We boys all explore the Royal Mile, the street that runs through the center of Old Town from Holyroodhouse to the Castle. Near the castle is the Castle Esplanade, the oldest part. High Street is where the shops are located, primarily for tourists. Edinburgh is said to be the real inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the medieval architecture on the Royal Mile gives that feeling.

ONE AFTERNOON, Mr. D is sitting on a bench in Princes Street Gardens with some of the younger boys.

“Has the band played in Scotland before Mr. D,” asks one of the boys?

“Many times,” he replies.

1936, Scotland Scotland follows England, with concerts in Edinburgh and Dunfermline, bicycle jaunts to see the Forth Bridge, bus tours to Loch Earn and Stirling Castle, the Highlands, and much shopping for tartan tam-o-shanters, neckties, and mufflers. So many of the boys; suddenly discover Scottish ancestral connections.

A group of the older boys, the fashion leaders, begin wearing sporty pork-pie hats, which are very trendy at the time. This seems to be a really “neat” thing to do, thinks Jim McCullock, being a painful copycat, so he buys one too. Big mistake. A short time later, his hat suddenly disappears – big mystery – no one has seen it, although he has his suspicions. These seem to be justified since the cap is returned to him several years later by one of the former “in-group,” with whom he is by then on pretty friendly terms. He calls him an obscene name, they have a good laugh, and Jim finally wears his no longer fashionable hat.

1968, Princes Street Gardens “Were the boys before us just as well behaved as we are,” asks another boy?

“Let me tell you something about that. You can interpret it however you wish.”

1934, Edinburgh “In Edinburgh, the boys are billeted all over town. Some stay in Dunfermline. In Dunfermline, I decide to go around to all the billets and see how everyone is doing. I walk into one place. Doug Harkness came up to Vancouver a few years ago from California.

I have lunch with him: Gordy McCullough, myself, Roy Johnston and Hector MacKay. Doug lives south of San Francisco and is a psychology professor at Berkeley. Anyway, I walk into the billet where Doug is staying in Dunfermline. The room is full of smoke, and dirty glasses are all over the place. Doug tells them,

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“I got quite a shock when I looked in the direction of the door, and Mr. D walked in.

He didn’t say anything. He just stops and stands there and looks. None of us say anything either. We are all smoking. He looks at each of us individually. Finally, he says, “Boys, you have just broken my heart.”

Then he turns around and walks out. We never heard anything more about it. He never mentions it or reprimands us. We figure, what he did, meant more than if he had ranted and raved about it.”

1968 Princes Street Gardens Our last concert at Princes Street Gardens attracts over 300 people. When Arthur comes out on stage, he sees in the second row several boys from past trips. Many are wearing medals, so he knows they are from the thirties. He recognizes Roy Johnston, the Boy Wonder, Johnny Hailstone, Gordy McCullough, Pete Humphreys, Wilfred Watkins,

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Vancouver 1930s

Roy Johnston is the star of the band, the ‘Boy Wonder’ they call him. He joined the band in 1929 and is their star trumpet soloist. By 1934, he garnered sixteen medals for his solo and quartet, playing in various competitions. In those days, they used to give out awards to winning soloists or group players. In 1931, Roy played the flugelhorn solo in Haute Monde at the Canadian National Exposition Band Festival in Toronto. This is the test piece in the big competition that the band wins (their first significant victory).

It makes them National Champs! Roy’s music teacher tells him he should look into this new band starting up in Kitsilano. Roy doesn’t know anything about Arthur, and he has never heard of the band. They rehearse in the little yellow schoolhouse behind General Gordon School. Arthur’s house is just across the fence. The boys sit on benches, five kids in a row. Each one accommodates six or seven kids, but they have to keep their arms in close.

Arthur says to Roy, “Sit there on the first chair!” Don Endicott sits next to Roy that first night. No one ever sits between them up until the day they both leave. Before they start, Mr. D sits beside Roy. He asks him to move over because he wants to talk to him.

Mr. D asks him some questions.

“How long have you been in the National Juvenile Band?

How long have you been taking lessons?

What do you think about their band?” Roy tells him he is quitting the National Juvenile Band. The last time that he heard them, they really hadn’t done such a good job.

He continued, “Mr. Delamont, I heard them the other day, and I thought they sounded like the devil,” Arthur yells, “Don’t you ever talk like that in here again? Nobody swears in this place.” That was swearing to him. So Roy gets beaten down before he even plays a note. He did some

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thing wrong right away. Roy never did it again. Such is Mr. D’s influence.

1968 Princes Street Gardens The boys play their best numbers at the concert. Next up is Whirligig, a trombone trio.

1940s Vancouver

PO. Wilfred Watkins, son of Mr. and Mrs. James M. Watkins, 3555 West First, is commended by his commanding officer for his part in bringing a badly damaged aircraft back to its base after going through fierce ack - ack fire during a raid over enemy territory.

The rear gun turret is blown away, other parts of the fuselage and wings are riddled, but despite this, through the efforts of Watkins, the navigator, and the pilot, a Canadian from Winnipeg, the aircraft is brought home safely.

PO. Watkins, a former Vancouver Sun carrier, was brought up in Vancouver and attended Lord Kitchener and Kitsilano High School, where he was a member of the Kitsilano Boys’ Band.

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Sgt. Pilot P. R. Humphrys, 2635 west Tenth, arrives overseas according to word received by his father, Noel Humphrys. Sgt. Humphrys, who attends Kitsilano High School, later joins the staff of T. C. A. at Lethbridge, where he enlists in the R. C. A. F. early in 1942. He is a former member of the Kitsilano Boys’ Band and made two trips to Great Britain with the famed organization.

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Lieutenant Stanley G. Patterson and Lieutenant Lawrence Patterson are both honour graduates of U. B. C. and enlist upon graduating with their degrees of B. A. Sc. in 1943.

Lawrence is serving with the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps, Pacific Command; both brothers are keen athletes. Norman, Stanley and Lawrence played rugby with the Barbarians. Stanley and Lawrence were both in the West Vancouver Boys’ Band and the Kitsilano Boys’ Band.

1968 Princes Street Gardens Between numbers, Arthur talks to the audience but doesn’t mention his boys in the second row. Their following number is the Overture to Mozart’s Magic Flute.

1940s Vancouver

Lieutenant Clifford E. Wood, the 26-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest H. Wood, 1379 Devonshire, is made aide-de-camp to a Canadian General in Sicily, according to a brief cable to his fiancee, Miss Jean Logan, 1125 West Thirty-third. The general, his mother believes, must be Major-General G. G. Simmonds, who is the only publiclyknown Canadian General in Sicily.

It is the only word that had been received from Lieutenant Wood since a cable several weeks ago, saying, “In Sicily-heat terrific, letters following.” But the letters have not yet arrived. Two brothers are Lieutenant D. Hunter Wood, Edmonton Fusiliers, and Harry, with the R. C. A. F. Lieutenant Clifford Wood went overseas with the Seaforths.

Lately, he has been on the general staff of the First Division. He worked for Pacific Coast Fire Insurance Co. here before joining the army. He was long a member of the Kitsilano

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One Beautiful Summer Boys’ Band, and had toured England with that group. He was educated at Prince of Wales High School.

Flying Officer Hugh D. Steeves, son of Captain R.P. Steeves, principal of General Gordon School and Mrs. Dorothy G. Steeves, M. L. A., has been killed in action overseas, according to word received by his parents.

F.O. Steeves enlisted in the R.C.A.F. in October 1940 and went overseas in October 1941. He was educated at Lord Byng High School and the University of British Columbia. He was a member of the famed Kitsilano Boys Band. The family residence is 6105 Alma.

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Lieutenant Alan D. Johnstone, son of Mr. and Mrs. R. M. Johnstone, 2030 Whyte, has arrived in England according to word received here. Lieutenant Johnstone, who enlisted in 1942, after completing his second year at the University of B. C., graduated from the Officers’ Training Centre at Gordon Head. He attended Kitsilano High School and was a member of the Kitsilano Boys’ Band for many years.

Flight Sargent ROSS STURLEY, son of CSM G. V. and Mrs. Sturley, 45 West Twenty-First, has been reported missing in overseas operations. The airman, 19, was well-known as an amateur musician in Vancouver before his enlistment. He was a member of the Kitsilano Boys’ Band, touring England when war broke out. He had his own program, “Chapel Chimes,” on station CJOR, and played in several city orchestras. After his eighteenth birthday, he went from Air Cadet Squadron 111, one of the original members, into active duty and went overseas last Spring.

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One Beautiful Summer Included in the 382nd casualty list released by Royal Canadian Air Force at Ottawa is Flight-Sergeant Ralph Derrick, whose wife resides at 2027 West Fifth Avenue.

Sergeant Derrick enlisted in the Air Force in June 1941. He was 24 years old. Born in Vancouver, Derrick was a former Kitsilano High School student and member of the world famous Kitsilano Boys’ Band. He was in the employ of the post office before enlisting.

Parents of Sargeant Derrick, Mr. and Mrs. H. C. Derrick, live at 677 West Twenty-First Avenue.

1968 Princes Street Gardens Arthur decides not to announce the hymn because so many of his boys in the audience will soon be going to war. He goes ahead and plays Deep Harmony, though.

1940s Vancouver

PO. According to word received here Sunday by his parents, Johnny Hailstone, 20, has been killed in action overseas. Chief Constable and Mrs. Charles Hailstone, 2813 Bellevue, West Vancouver. He has been overseas since late 1943. He was flying a Sunderland bomber based in Northern Ireland. He was on convoy duty at the time of his death. PO. Hailstone travelled with the Kitsilano Boys’ Band to Europe. He was active in West Vancouver badminton and basketball circles.

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NOTES:

Flight-Sergeant P. R. (Pete) Humphrys has been reported killed in air operations overseas. His father, Noel Humphrys, resides at 2635 West Tenth. Flight-Sargent Humphrys enlisted two years ago and has been overseas since March 1943. He attended Kitsilano High School and was later with Trans-Canada Airways at Sea Island. As a Kitsilano Boys’ Band member, he made two trips to Great Britain with the famous organization. His elder brother Noel is the assistant organizer of the Atlantic service of Trans Canada at Dorval, Quebec.

1968 Princes Street Gardens Arthur can’t decide which piece to play next. The memories of the boys in the audience who were killed in WWII are starting to affect him, so he thinks he wants to play something funny, so he chooses The Teddy Bears Picnic. But just at the last minute, he decides it would be better to honour the boys, and he tells the band to play The 1812 Overture.

1940s Winnipeg and somewhere over Occupied Europe

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Gordy, second from left

“Gordy McCullough is a bomb aimer in the war. He trains in Winnipeg. It is around -30 degrees. They march back and forth in these hangers. Sometimes they waver a bit, and the sergeant says, “Steady men. You have to be steady if you’re going to fight the hun!”

When he is coming back from one of his bombing missions, the Germans jam their radar box, England is blacked right out. They don’t know where they are going because their compass is broken. So, the rear gunner is really good at aligning stars. Davie says, “I got a fix!”

Turns out they are heading towards Greenland. They turn around and come back and land at a smaller place called Ford, in the south of England. The mozzies as they call them, the Mosquito’s, small planes like Spitfires, can only land at this

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place. Lancaster’s like Gordy flies can’t land there because the runway is too short. Keith Perry is his pilot, so he radios this small airport and says, “I’m coming in!” They say, “No! No, you can’t come in!”

“I’M COMING IN!” he repeats. When it comes in (boom), it hits hard and then down again (Boom), and finally, it stops at the end of the runway. When they stop, there are only nine minutes of petrol left. Another time, Gordy has the flu, and his crew gets hit.

He goes to see the guy who had replaced him in the hospital. He is covered in gauze from head to toe.

Gordy lives a charmed life in many ways, especially during the war. The survival rate for anyone in the R.C.A.F. is twenty-four percent, and Gordy makes thirty-five trips.

Many don’t survive their first trip, let alone thirty-five. His squadron travels across Canada to Halifax; he has toured across Canada with the band, now he is doing it again in the air force. When they arrive at Halifax, the squadron is split into two boats. Gordy’s ship goes up to Greenland and over to England. His boat does not get hit by German UBoats, but the other one does. He lives a charmed life but is pretty shaken up after the war. After a bit of a rest in Torquay, he is to be called back for another series of missions, and then the war ends.

Back in Vancouver, he works for a company called McCleery and Weston. They sell building supplies. Halfway through the day, he has to go to the washroom and says to himself, “I have to get through this day!” He finds it hard to cope with civilian life, the nine to five jobs. Wartime is wildlife. There is no tomorrow during the war. You are either on ops, flying planes, or you are on leave.

You can go where ever you want. Drinking is a way of life in the pubs of England. He drinks with a guy in a bit of town on the coast of England. He says, “See you later!” He has a mission to fly. Never see him again. Quite often, he is sick to his stomach. Gordy later writes in his diary, “The mozzie planes would come in first and set the flares. The Lancasters came in and marked the targets. The Lancasters flew at eight thousand feet. Then the Lancasters at twenty thousand feet would drop the bombs.”

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One Beautiful Summer On his first fifteen trips, Gordy flies in at twenty thousand feet. He is in the front of the plane, telling the pilot:

“Left, right, go, steady, steady.”

In his last fifteen missions, he flies in at eight thousand feet, marking the targets.

He is stationed at Skellingthorpe, Lincolnshire. On D-Day, they bomb Caens. He has missions into Germany. The wireless operator gets a fix on the way to Greenland. They, “Jam the G-Box!” as he puts it. Bernard Loosely is the mid-upper gunner. Jimmy Riddle is in charge of the G-Box. Keith Perry, the pilot, he says, “Was the best of them all!”

1968 Princes Street Gardens The last piece the band plays is The Lost Chord. It is their signature piece where Mr. D plays a solo out front on his trumpet, and at the chorus, all the trumpeters come and

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line up beside him on stage, and they all play the solo in unison. It always brings the audience to their feet; it is so powerful.

As the piece progresses, the boys start to come to the front and line up on Mr. Ds left and right. At the same time, several of his boys in the audience who play trumpet have their trumpet with them, and they come up on stage. When they start to play the chorus, the sound is electrifying. There is not a dry eye in the audience. Mr. D looks over at Roy Johnston, and Roy returns the glance with a wink.

After the performance, Mr. D goes down to the audience and begins talking to his boys.

“You can’t quit,” says one boy. “You’ve done a lot of good for a lot of boys.”

“No.” says another. “You have to come back and see us again. We will all be here.

Whenever you think of us, we will be here.”

“Boys. You make an old man’s heart feel perfect indeed. To see you all again and to hear you tell me that I meant so much to all of you is very special to me.”

“All you boys be careful,” he says. “You never know what the future may bring.”

“You too, Mr. D,” they say. “Keep teaching boys how to play your way, and you will never be sorry. That’s your future.” The boys all begin to depart and go their separate ways.

“Gordy,” shouts Mr. D to Gordy McCullough. “You be careful. I think you are going to be very busy in a few years.”

“I will, Mr. D. Thanks! I’m going to live a charmed life.

“Oh, and thanks!”

“For what, Mr. D?” “For what I know you are going to do with your life.”

Gordy waves a hearty goodbye to Mr. D and disappears out of sight.

Dave comes up from behind.

“Sorry I missed the finale. I had to go across the street and get something.”

“Too bad,” says Mr. D staring off in the direction the boys departed. “It was a good one.”

“Yes. The band sounded extra powerful on the Lost Chord, even from across the street.”

“We had some help.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The whole second row was filled with my boys. Those who played trumpet came up and joined us.”

“You don’t say,” replies Dave looking somewhat perplexed.

“Roy Johnston was there.”

“Oh?” “I didn’t know whether to tell the audience why we were playing a hymn. The boys haven’t been to war yet. I didn’t want to upset them. Some of them were even wear-

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One Beautiful Summer ing their medals.”

“Probably a good idea,” replies Dave looking over at the now-empty second row of seats.

“What’s this,” he asks?” He goes over to the seats and picks up something and brings it back to Mr. D. “Well, I’ll be darned,” gushes Arthur. “It’s a medal.”

“Is there a name on it,” asks Dave?” Arthur turns the medal over.

“Ralph Derrick, 1933. He was at the world championship in Chicago.”

“What did he do after the band?”

“He was one of the boys who died in the war.”

“Maybe he wanted you to have it, Arthur.”

“Gordy McCullough was there as well. He made it through the war. Flew 35 missions in a Lancaster bomber and lived to tell the story.”

“Geez, that’s a lot.”

“It sure is. I finally discovered what the message was.”

“What message?”

“The message they all had for me. The boys had to have some reason for showing up.

They wanted to tell me something.”

“And what was that?”

“Not too quit!”

“Oh. Good idea. You weren’t going to really quit, were you?”

“I don’t know. I was thinking about it. Still am. But at least now I know my boy’s opinions.”

“That’s true. I don’t think you should quit either,” Dave adds as they start to walk away.

“Good to know,” replies Arthur. “I’ll remember that.”

1968, London The day before they return to Canada, Back in London, Arthur buys two new pieces of music for the band that have just come out, Funny Girl and Fiddler on the Roof. He spends all night in his hotel room rewriting them in manuscript form for the boys to play at the homecoming concert at The Q.E. Theatre in Vancouver. The next day, he rehearses both numbers in a vacant wing at Heathrow Airport before getting on the Vancouver airplane.

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It is an eight-hour flight to Toronto, where they have an overnight stopover before heading on the next day to Vancouver. The hall which Dave finds for the boys to sleep in for the night is short of two beds, so Mr. D asks Keith and me if we would like to spend the night with him at his son Gordon’s house. We both accept.

1968 Toronto, Gordon’s House “I hear you are thinking of quitting the band,” Gordon tells his dad.

“City Council only gave us one thousand dollars towards this trip,” cries Arthur. “That only covers airfare for one boy, and I brought 39.”

“Wasn’t it always that way,” asks Gordon?

“But back in your day, we had a big committee who were very good at raising funds.

Besides, we were the only band around in the thirties that was travelling, so it was easier to raise the money.”

“Not to mention, everything was a lot cheaper.”

“That’s true. I am just not sure I want to keep doing it all by myself anymore,” Arthur says. “If you had stayed in Vancouver instead of coming here to Toronto in 1939, things might have been different.”

“Don’t go blaming me now. You know your kind of music is not my kind of music.”

“Still, I raised you to take over one day. A father should be able to expect his son to follow in his footsteps.”

“You’re tired; I think you all need to get some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning,” says Gordon. “Boys, I will put a mattress down here on the living room floor for you to sleep on and bring you some pillows and blankets. I’m sure it is as good if not better than some of the places he found you to sleep in on the trip. Dad, you can sleep in the spare room.”

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One Beautiful Summer “Things would have been different if you had stayed in Vancouver,” mutters Arthur as he heads down the hall to his bedroom. Soon he is fast asleep.

1928 Vancouver, Kitsilano Neighborhood

From his living room window every day, Arthur can see the school children going back and forth to General Gordon Elementary School, and it gives him an idea. He is teaching Gordon to play the trumpet, and it would be nice if Gordon had some boys his own age to play music with, so why not start a boys’ band! One day he decides to go over and talk to the school principal, Captain Steeves, about his idea.

Captain Steeves is delighted with Arthur’s idea, and he even says that he will send his own son, Hugh, down to play in his band. He also tells Arthur that he can use the little yellow schoolhouse at the playground’s back for evening rehearsals. Arthur knows that vaudeville will not last, and Arthur doesn’t want Gordon hanging around the street corners getting into trouble, so Arthur thinks he will give it a try. When he mentions his idea to the other musicians in the pit orchestra one evening at the Pantages Theatre, they tell him he is crazy and warns him that boys cannot sit still long enough to play anything decent. If anything makes Arthur more determined than ever, someone tells him that something can’t be done. So, upon hearing their remarks, he packs up his trumpet, gets up and tells them he is off to start a boys’ band.

1936 Vancouver Gordon Delamont’s first professional job is as a non-union musician in a union band.

The Musician’s Union gives him a special dispensation since it is a New Year’s Eve. All of the union trumpet players are engaged. The job - a New Year’s dance, is at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, which, at that time anyway, is in the jurisdiction of the Vancouver Union. Shortly after the beginning of the dance, Gordon happens to look up from his

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music. Dancing almost in front of Gordon is the principal of his high school and his lovely French teacher. They see him at just about the same time and are obviously startled and non-plussed. Since they have taken a ninety-mile boat ride from their home ground, he is sure that they are not expecting to encounter anyone who knows them. For some reason, he has the good sense to avoid greeting them.

As his professional career progresses, particularly when he becomes an orchestra leader, he finds discretion about who is dating who is necessary on many occasions.

Nevertheless, his first encounter with the necessity for this kind of discretion is shocking. One doesn’t think of one’s teachers as having illicit sex lives.

Gordon becomes involved with Dal Richards and his orchestra in the mid-thirties, playing at the now-defunct Palomar Ballroom. Dal has a significant role in shaping Gord’s attitude to the music business. Musically, he provides him with the opportunity to learn the basics of lead trumpet playing and also the basics of the crafts of arranging and orchestration. Gordon can write music for his orchestra and take advantage of the opportunity to hear it played by professional musicians in professional circumstances. Dal is the first person to pay him for writing music. But it is his attitude towards the music business that is the most important. While Dal never talks about the glamour of the

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One Beautiful Summer music business, it is implicit in his demeanour, his bearing and his leadership. Dal is a good leader who can keep everyone happy: the management, the musicians and the public they are playing for. This ability is just as rare now as it was then. Dal Richards is the man who, perhaps unintentionally, directs Gordon into music as a career. However, the man that sparks his interest in writing music and from whom he learns the most about the writing craft is Gordon Edwards. They have been in close contact for two years, 1938 (Vancouver) and 1939 (Toronto).

He is a brilliant musician. He can, for example, write a piece of music by taking a walk, smoking a pipe, returning home and then, without the benefit of a formal score, with all parts indicated on it, simply sit down and write each element in its appropriate key, individually - and it doesn’t matter to him which part he writes first - trombone, flute, whatever. Although he has heard of other people with this ability, Gordon Edwards is the only person he ever saw do it.

June 1939, Kitsilano Gordon marries Joan Agnew. Joan had been a member of Arthur’s Vancouver Girls’ Band. Gordon has played on all of Arthur’s trips, and Arthur wants Gordon to come on his next trip to Europe, but it isn’t meant to be. Gordon and Joan are house-sitting for Arthur in the summer of 1939 on west 7th while the band is in Europe. Dal Richards goes over one day and finds them both upset. Joan smokes, and she has burnt a hole in Arthur’s piano bench. The two of them spend the rest of the summer running around trying to replace the seat before Arthur returns home.

1939 Toronto When Joan and Gordon arrive in Toronto in the fall of 1939, Gordon cannot get his Union card for six months, so he winds up playing casual gigs with some of the jobbing leaders around town, most prominently, the three Romanelli brothers (Luigi, Don and Leo). His first job for the Romanelli’s is at the Royal York Hotel. He arrives about 8:45 p.m. since the appointment is booked for 9 p.m. Don Romanelli immediately chastises him for not coming early enough and informs him that, because of what he regards as his tardiness, he is not going to allow him to play the first trumpet. Even if he had been guilty of some action requiring punitive measures, Gordon fails to comprehend how moving him to second trumpet is punitive since it affects neither his working conditions, the length of the working hours or the figure on his paycheque. About halfway through the job, Romanelli calls out ‘Bugle Call Rag,’ which happens to start with a slightly jazzy bugle call written on the second trumpet part. At the last second, he recalls this and immediately cuts off the band, saying: “You are not allowed to play that tonight - please give the introduction to the first

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trumpet player.”

Since the beginning of the job, Don Romanelli has been the leader; his brothers Luigi and Leo are waiting in the wings. Eventually, they can no longer stand being out of the limelight, and they both walk on the stage, physically elbowing their brother Don into the wings. This process continues for the rest of the evening, almost as if the three conductor routine had been choreographed. Often a Romanelli job will involve only one of the brothers, but whenever the engagement is a vital society booking, the three will be there, invariably going through the same farcical dance routine, complete with batons.

Besides the Romanelli’s, there are other eccentrics, of course. Like J. Stanley St. John, for whom Gordon does a lot of work. Stan’s crowning achievement is having 47 different bands playing, each under his name on the same New Year’s Eve. The story has it that he makes a personal appearance at each of the 47 jobs, thereby ensuring that the employers in each case got a Stanley St. John band and got J. Stanley St. John.

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One Beautiful Summer As it is still evident that they need more dollars, it seems prudent to Gordon to get someday work. He soon finds a job selling Goblin vacuum cleaners. This job is not to his liking, so he moves from being a failed vacuum cleaner salesman to working for the McLean-Hunter Company as a salesman for McLean’s magazine.

After six months, he can get a steady job as a trumpet player. Soon after that, he is hired by Frank Bogart, who has an excellent nine-piece band at the Club Top Hat. This also brings an opportunity to continue arranging since Frank agrees to buy two of his arrangements a week. Again he is in the fortunate position of hearing his arrangements played nightly for two or three months, and when he makes an error in judgment in his writing, he gets to listen to it repeatedly since he is playing in the band. Consequently, he usually doesn’t make that mistake again. The Top Hat Club is only a block or two from a ballroom called the Palais Royale, and the Palais Royale has a policy of bringing every American’ name band’ in for a one-nighter; bands such as Goodman, Ellington, Miller, James, Dorsey, etc. It so happens that the job at the Top Hat finishes each night about a half-hour before the closing time at the Palais Royale, so it becomes their habit to go over and catch the last few tunes when one of these visiting bands is there.

Gordon left Frank Bogart’s orchestra in 1945 to organize his own. He manages to secure a steady, six-night-a-week job for the orchestra in a seedy nightclub called the Hollywood Hotel on the westernmost fringes of Toronto. Some mysterious twist of fate, he is booked with the orchestra into the Brant Inn, which is at the complete opposite end of the social scale. It is in Burlington, about forty miles from Toronto, and is a prestige booking which any orchestra would have welcomed.

Gordon hires a larger orchestra for the Brant Inn, which means writing a new ‘book’ of arrangements. It is about this time that Gordon remembers something his father had said to him when he was about eight years old, “String players are not like the rest of us.” He has thought about hiring string players but finds that they will not play for less than union rates. String players view themselves as a notch above everyone else.

He also thinks he will add a new vocalist. He lets it be known that he needs a vocalist, and several young ladies arrange to audition for the job. One of these young ladies is Vina Smith. When she walks into the seedy Hollywood Hotel where the auditions are being held, Gordon is smitten. He falls in love with Vina immediately, and his marriage to Joan ends! Besides falling in love with Vina, Gordon always says the main reason for his failed marriage to Joan is his excessive youth. He had married too young. Fortunately, Vina is a good singer. Feeling as he did, he very well may have hired her anyway.

He quickly finds out that she is a better ‘natural’ musician than he.

Gordon books the band into the Lakeview Casino at Grand Bend after their engagement at the Brant Inn, a resort town on Lake Huron. His arranging at the time is being influenced by Stravinsky by way of Boyd Raeburn but the sophisticated patrons

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who come from London, Stratford, and nearby Detroit seem to appreciate what they are trying to do, so the musicians are happy, the patrons are happy, and therefore, Eric McIlroy, the owner, is happy too. From Grand Bend, they return to Toronto, where they play at the Top Hat Club for three years, fall, winter and spring seasons.

Gordon’s marriage to Joan is not a total failure as it produces his first-born daughter, Susan, who remains particularly special to him over the years. Gordon will have two more children with Vina: Debra and later on Gordo, who will be the first of his children to exhibit musical talent and interest. Gordo will study piano and synthesizer, but his first love is the trombone.

1949 Toronto Gordon disbands his orchestra and retires from the orchestra-leading business after their third winter at the Top Hat in 1949. Except for rehearsal bands and

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Other than trumpet lessons from his father and casual help from Gordon Edwards, Gordon has had virtually no formal training in writing music. He has, however, always been interested in the principle behind the fact. He becomes more curious about the ‘why’ of this fact and all of the other points that he has encountered in arranging for Richards, for Bogart and for his own orchestra. So, believing that the best way to learn any subject is to write a book about it, he decides to do exactly that.

At that time, books which purported to teach anything in twenty lessons were trendy, so he decided to adopt that format and wrote a book called ‘Learn Modern Arranging in Twenty Lessons.’ Around this time, he has encountered pamphlets by Dr. Maury Deutsch of New York, which uses the harmonic overtone series as a point of reference.

While he doesn’t know very much about the harmonic overtone series, he has begun to suspect that it is generally a significant factor in music. So he makes plans to go to New York. He studies - two lessons a day for two weeks with Dr. Deutsch.

After a little more time spent with Dr. Deutsch, he decides to return to Toronto, determined to make a living through the private teaching of arranging and composition. He finds a suitable studio, sets up an advertising campaign with the help of Mr. Hank Rosati, a friend and the lead saxophone player in his now-defunct orchestra. He never taught in any manner other than privately. Although he has over a dozen offers of teaching posts and professorships from universities and colleges in Canada and the United States throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s, he feels that he would not cope well with faculty meetings, courses structured into rigid time frames, nor with political infighting and jockeying for position that seems to be part of institutional education. He does, however, lecture in colleges and universities and does some adjudicating.

Shortly after he begins teaching, one of his students, Russ Messina, comes in every week from Buffalo, NY. He has gradually been discarding his ‘Twenty lessons’ book as the chief reference in his teaching, but Russ thinks he should show it to friends of his who operate Kendor Music Incorporated. After looking the book over, Kendor is interested in publishing the book, giving him full author’s credits and royalties after looking the book over.

However, by then, Gordon is disenchanted with the ‘Twenty Lessons’ format of the book. There isn’t nearly enough information. He does not want it to appear as a formal book. Instead, he approaches Art Dedrick, the president of Kendor, with a proposition.

He suggests that he will write a totally new book on arranging, and when it is completed, Dedrick can publish it if he likes it. Dedrick accepts his offer. Gordon writes the book - which is probably ten times the size of his ‘Twenty Lessons’ opus, over the next two years while continuing to make a living teaching and playing trumpet professionally. It is a productive period of his life but ultimately takes its toll on his health, which was never robust anyway. Fortunately, Mr. Dedrick likes the book and publishes it. He says that he hopes the book will still be selling ten years from then.

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After the success of his arranging book, it is not too challenging to have Kendor publish other texts that he will write over the years. These include two notable books on harmony, a book on melody, one on modern counterpoint and one on the twelve-tone technique. Gordon bases his own teaching process on these books. They are used in the curriculum, or at least as required reading, in the music faculties of many universities and music colleges throughout Canada and the United States and some other countries where North American styles of music are taught.

During the 1950s, he put his professional trumpet playing aside, except for some television studio work done with an orchestra conducted by Les Foster - a man who is the epitome of what a professional musician should be. For Gordon, this removed the aggravation of having to deal with the eccentric, spurious and spuriously eccentric jobbing band leaders who seem to proliferate in Toronto. Consequently, he can devote more time and energy to aspects of music, such as teaching and writing books, that have become of more interest to him.

The fifties is an exciting time for those interested in developing and writing jazz music. The decade sees the development of jazz composition, labelled ‘third stream’ music by the American composer Gunther Schuller. Music is an amalgam of jazz and ‘classical’ elements and takes divergent avenues. In Toronto, Spearheading jazz composition are two men Gordon is fortunate enough to have as his students, Ron Collier and Norm Symonds. Both of them organize groups to provide vehicles for their music and with which they can experiment.

In the last years of the fifties, Gordon became more interested in jazz composing, rather than just dispensing, as a teacher, approval and criticism. Taking a cue from Collier and Symonds, he organizes a group of musicians to use as a vehicle to write for. Gordon has excellent success playing concerts, making television appearances, etc. He wrote a large body of music during this time, much of it published, some of it recorded.

Expo 1967 Montreal Gordon is commissioned by the Ontario Government to write a twenty-minute work for twenty musicians in the Ontario pavilion at Expo 67. The piece, which becomes his favourite, is called the ‘Ontario Suit.’’ Kendor subsequently publishes the ‘Ontario Suit” in a slightly different format than it is originally written. The printed form receives its premiere at Kleinham’s Music Hall, Buffalo, New York, on a program with the tuba virtuoso Harvey Philips, and the man who Gordon believes to be the most significant technical master of the trumpet the world has ever seen, Carl (‘Doc’) Severinson’ The nature of Gordon’s business teaching, writing books, etc. - seems to lead naturally into the area of adjudicating, and he finds himself quite heavily involved in this pursuit - particularly during the sixties and early seventies. He does quite a bit of stage

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One Beautiful Summer band adjudicating and, primarily because of a couple of his students, Tony Mergel and Russ Messina - much accordion judging in Canada and the United States.

Gordon writes: “I’m somewhat ambivalent about the value of music competitions and the ‘grading’ of musical ability. Sometimes, it’s just plain useless. I remember one contest where I was required to judge fifty kids playing ‘Valse Triste’ on the accordion. After hearing the forty-fifth one, had I been asked how they compared with the fifth one, I wouldn’t have the foggiest notion. The competition should not have been set up this way, and I should not have accepted a chore such as that, which requires maybe three different sessions and about six adjudicators. The value of competition to the music student depends mainly on how well they are organized and, of course, on the efficiency of the judges.

Further, I think that it is essential that all contestants’ teachers point out to their students that if they are in a winning band or orchestra or are a winning soloist, this does not mean that a music career should or must naturally follow - and if they are in a losing band or orchestra or are a losing soloist, this in no way means that a music career is not to be contemplated.

Because of his father’s Kitsilano Boys’ Band, he played in competitions all over the world, and he never heard of a young person being psychologically damaged by losing a contest, although he’ll agree that such a thing could be a possibility. The whole idea of competitive festivals began in Britain, wherein 1900, there were 35,000 brass bands - most associated with industrial firms, mines, mills, etc., and they were part of the company’s public relations with which they were associated. A win by a company band was regarded as good advertising for the company. By 1950, the number of brass bands in England declined to 3500. Interestingly though, the stage band competitions (which may possibly outnumber concert band competitions in North America presently) also started in Britain in the 1930s, when they were known as ‘dance band’ competitions.”

1967 Toronto At Mr. Lou Applebaum’s suggestion, the Canadian Association of Publishers, Authors and Composers (CAPAC) decides to approach Duke Ellington to ask him to come to Toronto and record, as a soloist, some music written by Norm Symonds, Ron Collier and Gordon Delamont. He readily agrees to this. They decide to use a medium-size jazz orchestra under the direction of Ron Collier. Both Ron and Norm add a large string section to the orchestra. On the day of the rehearsal and recording, they feel it might be a good idea to talk to Duke ahead of time to give him an idea of what will be required of him.

So Symonds, Collier and Delamont arrange to visit Ellington in his downtown hotel room on the morning of the day they make the recording. After years of adulation, they are somewhat excited by the prospect of meeting the legend himself. They knock on the

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door and, except for a nylon stocking on his head, he is as naked as a jaybird. His first words are: “Come into the valley of the giants.” For the rest of the morning, despite appearances by waiters, press people and others, he remains in the unadorned condition he was in when he had initially opened the door. He orders breakfast sent in, which, as Gordon recalls, consists mainly of a steak and a pitcher of hot water.

Eventually, it becomes time to go to the recording studio, although they have not found an opportunity to discuss the music with him. He dons some casual but striking clothing. The unique clothing is, of course, the original genesis of the ‘Duke.’ The rehearsal and recording session itself they will never forget. Each one of the three of them has written two pieces - one short one and one more substantial piece of about ten minutes in length. There are solos for Ellington in each. The solos are, in the main, improvised but sometimes are totally or partially notated. The first surprise is their discovery that Duke is not very adept at the business of reading music. In fact, at one point, he says to them:

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One Beautiful Summer “This is the first time I’ve had to read music since we played at the Cotton Club in 1928.” They are sure this is true because with his own band playing his own music, he would really have no reason to write out a piano part but would simply play whatever he felt was required at any given time. Collier’s central piece, called ‘Aurora Borealis,’ is a lovely piece of music. Based on air-play, it is probably the most famous piece on the album. Gordon’s piece is called ‘Song and Dance’ and is just that. During the early, slower section, Gordon has a solo for Duke, most written. He keeps getting lost and finally says to Gordon: “Where’s the dominant chord?” Gordon points out its position to him, after which there is no further problem. Norm Symond’s ‘Nameless Hour’ is probably the most experimental and most exciting piece on the album. The work gives Duke the most trouble, insofar as he is never quite sure when to start and when to stop. Finally, at Norm’s request, Gordon sits on the piano bench with Ellington advising him, based on Norm’s written music, when and when not to play (not, however, on what to play!) Had anyone told Gordon, twenty years earlier, that he would one day sit with Duke Ellington, directing him in some musical matter, he would not, of course, have believed it. That part of the day made it a memorable experience for Gordon. Throughout the session - which ran from about lunchtime to well past the dinner hour, Duke constantly drank CocaCola, into each bottle of which he would add a sugar package. Whatever ills had started to plague him by then, hyperglycemia was not among them. The record was initially recorded on the Decca label and called ‘North of the Border.’

Three or four months later, Gordon is awakened quite early on a Sunday morning by the telephone. He picks up the receiver, and a voice says, “This is Duke.” Still half asleep, he tries to think of someone he knows called ‘Duke’ and asks, “Duke who?” The answer is a simple “Ellington, man.” After exchanging greetings, Duke says, “Get some paper and a pencil and write down these titles.” He proceeds to rattle off about a dozen song titles and then says, “I want you to make an arrangement of each of these for my band. We are doing an album for Reader’s Digest, and the rehearsal will be a week from Tuesday at a New York address.”

He also says that he will send him a plane ticket. By then, Gordon’s brain is beginning to function, and he realizes that to do all this work, he will have to cancel his students; and Gordon decided some years before that teaching is his principal vocation and that he will let nothing seriously interrupt or affect that. This assignment will undoubtedly do that, so he turns it down. Duke seems surprised - Gordon is sure he is not used to having offers turned down. Gordon suggests that perhaps Ron Collier will be interested and available. Ellington agrees and asks Gordon to have Ron phone him. Ron can take the assignment. Gordon is left with another sharply etched incident in his memory being awakened by a phone call from Duke Ellington with a request to write music for him.

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The following day Arthur comes out into the living room, and Gordon asks, “Did you have a good night’s sleep, Dad?” “Yes, I did. A wonderful night’s sleep and everything is all right.”

“Glad to hear it,” replies Gordon and the two men embrace.

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Mr.D and Malcolm

When the band arrives back in Vancouver, they rush quickly through customs and into the waiting room to greet their parents, whisking them off to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre to play a homecoming concert. Delamont sees the same reporter who interviewed him when they left.

“So what have you decided,” asks the reporter of Arthur. “Are you quitting your boy’s band?”

“I could never do that,” he admits with a big smile. “Besides, I have to return to England to see my boys. They’re all there waiting for me,” he adds, hurrying off.

“Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen,” straight from the, err, band director’s mouth. Not sure what he meant by needing to return to England to see his boys, but it doesn’t matter; the important thing is that Arthur Delamont will keep on directing his famed Kitsilano Boys Band, at least for the near future.”

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Queen Elizabeth Theatre The boys are seen standing in a row on either side of Delamont playing the final chorus of their signature tune, The Lost Chord.

NARRATOR READS: Epilogue Arthur made three more trips to the old country and Europe with his band and retired after his 1974 trip. He made one last tour with a small group of his old boys back to England in 1979 and passed away in Vancouver in 1982 at the ripe old age of 91. He made 14 trips with his boys to England and the continent-spanning forty years from 1934 through 1974. Many boys went on to careers in music and became the who’s who of the Canadian musical establishment. Others became educators, businessmen, lawyers, entrepreneurs and politicians. All his boys lived successful lives because of their lessons early, playing in his band. They learned what it means to be successful at a young age, and they wanted to emulate that success for the rest of their lives. Arthur led by example, and thousands of boys passed through his bands. His boy’s band was the impetus for other youth bands to start up across Canada, as every town they passed through by train on their way to the ship to England wanted a band that played at the same level as his band. His band set the standard for youth bands, and because of its high level of musicianship, instrumental music got on to the curriculum of Canadian schools in the mid-sixties, promoted by a dedicated group of music educators in each province.

Gordon became known as the leading authority on harmonic technique in Canada, and his students became leaders in bands and orchestras across Canada. He died in 1981, a year before Arthur.

Dave managed one more trip to Europe for Arthur in 1970 and then spent the next twenty or so years in New York, where he held jobs at the Waldorf Astoria and Metropolitan Men’s Club. He died of aids in New York in the late nineties.

Garfield White-met Arthur in vaudeville and had an act called Madame Olga Petrovich.

He dressed as a woman, and his sidekick was Dave Denton. They performed for the troops in WWII, and Garfield was an essential part of Delamont’s early success with his boy’s band, opening doors with the CPR across Canada and onboard ships.

Jimmy Pattison was in the band in the 1940s, but instead of going to Europe with the band in 1950, he married his high school sweetheart Mary and a few years later, they had a son Jimmy Jr. who did go to Europe with the band in 1966.

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One Beautiful Summer Wally became a high school band teacher and passed away in the 1990s from complications from an operation after going into the hospital.

Bill Inman, who shadowed Robyn and me in London and took pictures of Maria and me in Dartmouth, earned an accounting degree and went into the resort development business.

Robyn, Bill’s older sister, who I was pretty fond of, got a degree in French Studies and opened a language school in Vancouver that she successfully ran for many years.

Heather, Bill’s younger sister, married a golf pro and now lives in Arizona.

David Baillie, the young boy who Mr. D advised to go into the theatre in Dartmouth, spent his whole life acting in English community theatre productions.

Tom Walker, the boy who sat on the edge of the Dart River in Dartmouth and said there was no other place in the world he would rather be, became an architect and built bandstands worldwide, just like the ones he played in, in the band.

Barry Millar, the accordovox player, went into his father’s trucking business and took it over when his father died. He did pretty well for himself and these days spends his time adding cars to his antique car collection.

Bruce Millar, Barry’s brother and Jane Baker’s elusive beau in Dartmouth married the younger sister of Wendy, the only girl on the ‘68 tour. He lives with his wife Crystal in Las Vegas and still plays drums in the clubs.

Wayne Briscoe, dressed up as Tiny Tim at the Boatel in Dartmouth, became a commercial pilot.

John Hawthorn, who liked Mrs. Tucker’s daughter Kay in Dartmouth, married someone from Vancouver but kept in touch with Kay. Kay Tucker, Mrs. Tucker’s daughter, didn’t marry someone else. After Kay’s husband died, John continued to visit Dartmouth regularly in the summer to make sure Kay was all right.

Jane Baker worked on a cruise ship travelling the world and enjoyed life to the fullest.

She eventually married and settled down in Germany, where she lives today.

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Maria, Jane’s sister, who I liked, was one of the two girls we knew who married an officer from the Royal Naval College. She now lives in New Zealand and has a large extended family.

The other girl we knew who married an officer from the college was Janet Baillie. Janet married Tony Taylor, and they reside in England.

Her sister, Maggi, still resides in Dartmouth.

Jeannie Deacon, who we met at the Boatel, married and moved to Newfoundland, where she presently lives with her family.

Don Luff, who Jeannie liked, married a Vancouver girl back home and worked for Telus all his life.

Donny Clark, one of the boys Arthur said hello to in Blackpool, became the first call for over 20 years on Vancouver’s pro music scene.

Arnie Chycoski, the other boy Arthur said hello to in Blackpool, became the lead trumpet player with the Boss Brass and the Spitfire Band in Toronto for over 30 years.

Clif Bryson, one of the original members of Arthur’s band, was recruited by Joe Brown in 1937 and joined the first R.C.M.P. Band started by fourteen members of Arthur’s band. He went on to create the first R.C.M.P. Dance Band in Regina a few years later.

Ron Wood from the 1950 trip, true to his word, didn’t go into music after seeing how professional musicians lived in Blackpool, and he became a banker like his uncle.

Michael Hadley, who assisted Arthur in his time of need in 1958 and 1962, became a Professor of German Literature at the University of Victoria and resides in Victoria, B.C. Bill Ingledew, who played the trumpet solo in the graveyard in Paris, went into the shoe business, taking over his family’s shoe store, Ingledews, in downtown Vancouver.

Rob Arseneau, the young trumpet player on the bus to Dartmouth, asked one of the older boys what Dartmouth was like, married within the next couple of years, and had a large family. Today they all call him affectionately Pops, after his idol Louis Armstrong.

Bill Millerd, one of the boys injured in Paris by the Citroen in 1962, built the Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver into the premier theatre attraction in Western Canada.

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One Beautiful Summer Chris Crane, severely injured by the Citroen in Paris, lives on Vancouver Island and is happy his story is finally being told.

Bob Buckley, the boy who stayed the longest in the hospital in Cologne and wound up being taken by a doctor to see the Francy Bolland Big Band, was in several rock bands in Vancouver in the 1960s and today writes music for film and public school band programs.

Barry Leinbach, who reminisced about the Kerkrade Band Festival, is Captain Barry of the Kitsilano Showboat today, a free entertainment venue for people of all ages on the beach in Kitsilano, taking over from his mother, Captain Bea, when she passed away.

Richard Christie, who dated the Carnival Queen in South-end-on-sea, became a high school band teacher and today lives on one of the gulf islands outside Vancouver.

Barry Brown, who had fun trying to hold on to his music in the wind in South-end-onsea in 1962, also became a high school band teacher.

George Ellenton, who Mr. D followed into the London urinal and scolded him about smoking, passed away a few years ago from lung cancer. George was multi-talented and a great guy. He started a dance school in Greater Vancouver. His students all became known as George’s girls.

Dal Richards, who dived off the diving board in Shanklin, did become a big band leader.

For many years his band played at the top of the Hotel Vancouver in the Panorama Roof. He was known all over the west coast as the King of Swing and played more New Year’s Eve bashes than any other bandleader.

Art Tusvik, who hurt his foot on the bus in1958 and stayed at Kay Coombes’ house outside of London to recuperate, married Kay in 1959, and they returned to Vancouver in 1963. Art played professionally around Vancouver in later years.

After Kay and Art moved back from London, Jimmy Coombes, Ted Heath’s Bass trombone player, immigrated to Vancouver in the sixties. He became the first call around Vancouver on his trombone and taught at the University of B.C. Ted Lazenby, who asked Don Lusher, Ted Heath’s great trombone player, for lessons, played the solo from Scenes that are Brightest on his trombone at a German radio station on the 1958 band trip. Representatives from the Berlin Philharmonic tracked him

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down. Later in Vancouver and after he became the first instrumental music graduate from the University of BC in 1962, he spent a year playing trombone for Herbert von Karajan in the Berlin Philharmonic. The other musicians weren’t too nice to him, being he was an outsider, so he only stayed one year. He spent the next year travelling around Spain getting drunk. He eventually returned to Vancouver and did professional work.

Art Butroid, one of the originals, became an Admiral in the Canadian Navy during WWII. Roy Johnston, the boy wonder and an original played the cruise ship circuit in the late 1930s. He returned to Vancouver where he worked days and, in 1954, joined Arthur’s first professional band, playing venues all over town. He became indispensable to Arthur in later years, keeping his pro-band running smoothly.

Gordy McCullough survived WWII and went into the real estate business in Vancouver.

He became quite wealthy over the years but never played the drums again after the age of twenty.

Don Radelet, who was on the 1939 trip and met one of the American girls who died when the Athenia was torpedoed by a German U-boat, was also indispensable to Arthur in later years with his pro-band. He said he played in all of Delamont’s pro-bands over the years, which was probably true. Another great guy!

Bruce Ball, who sat with Dave at a sidewalk cafe in Paris and watched the students fighting the gendarmes, received a degree in Geology and now lives in Alberta, where he hunts for dinosaur bones.

Marek Norman, who played the piano for the boys in their youth hostel in Paris, studied with Gordon Delamont and wrote 35 musicals. He still composes today and lives in Stratford, Ontario, with his wife, Barb.

As for me, I eventually became a high school band teacher like so many of Delamont’s boys but not for very long. I went into the writing and publishing business and spent twenty years researching the history of Mr. Ds band, which included interviewing over 160 old boys; that is why I know so much about the band and why I wrote this story!

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Random shots of the boys backstage during The Lost Chord

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Back Stage, Q.E. Theatre Dave is standing in the wings as Arthur comes off stage.

“That was one beautiful summer,” exclaims Dave.

“I’ve had many beautiful summers, and I remember them all.”

“Any old boys in the audience that shouldn’t be there,” he asks Arthur?

“No. I didn’t see any,” Delamont replies with a smile.

“Good. Then I guess you’ve made up your mind. See you in two years for your 1970 trip,” adds Dave.

“Going back to New York?”

“Yup. That’s home now.”

“England’s home for me.”

“Yes. I’ve known that for quite some time.”

“Dave. Thanks for not calling me a silly old man.”

“I’d never do that. Not to your face.”

“Oh, go.” They both wave each other off, and Dave departs.

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