Did you watch that Sue Perkins takes on a dying colliery band and makes it good again series?
It was great. You've gotta love Sue. She makes Mrs F-C laugh just to look at her since we met her once. I introduced myself and Mrs F-C getting all starstruck couldn't wait to be introduced by me and said 'and I'm her husband', to which Sue replied, 'Well it is 2002!'.
She's not everyone's cup of tea, but she is funny. She's a hoot in the Supersizers Eat... (I hear that won't be returning, sadly) but I did wonder if transplanting her in the depths of the north to the small town of Dinnington and have her meddling in the traditions of the band might mean she'd go down like a cup of cold sick. But she didn't let such things stand in her way. She got stuck in and she got on with the job. And she was herself. People like that.
Her dedication to dragging that band into the 2010s was admirable, seeing as there were a lot of personalities to deal with and conductors and drummers who kept letting them down. It was a struggle, but in the end she did it, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house as they joined the Grimethorpe Colliery Band (Man Utd to Dinnington's Yeovil Town) on stage to perform the William Tell Overture, conducted by Sue, in Grimethorpe's trademark double-quick time.
It was a delight.
I love brass band music. Silver bands, colliery bands, I can't get enough of them. I think it's since I went out and bought the Floral Dance by the Brighouse & Rastrick Brass Band in 1977 I've had a thing. I love that song. I'm dying to DJ and play it a wedding and we could all dance like we worked in the Chigley biscuit factory. Then I'd follow it up with Mike Oldfield's Portsmouth. Expect a full to bursting dancefloor then.
I'm a fan of things like Brassed Off too, the music, always tinged with mournfulness, touches your very soul. But it's somehow uplifting.
I'll stop gushing.
I notice there's a new colliery band CD out which I'm going to have to buy. So while you wait for me to do that, here's something they call Orange Juice. It'll go right through you.
