TO PLAY FOR QUEEN

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30055, 13 February 1963, Page 12

TO PLAY FOR QUEEN

Notable Record Of Army Band The, Band of the Ist Canterbury Regiment, which will play at the Christchurch welcome to the Queen on Saturday, has a notable record. It was formed in 1859 as the band of the Christchurch City Guards and was later known as the Christchurch Garrison Band. It became the band of the Canterbury Regiment when the Territorial Force was reorganised in 1912. It has attended most of the important civic events over that period and played at all previous Royal visits. All bandsmen are volunteers and attested members of the Territorial Force, trained in the use of light weapons and as stretcherbearers. The band has had only five bandmasters in the last 50 years. The present conductor (Captain D. 1. Williams), who has been in office for 10 years, is a former war-time naval officer, and is possibly the only soldier in the New Zealand Army who wears the Naval General Service Medal. The deputy - bandmaster (Warrant-Officer N. Berry* wears the Army Efficiency Medal with five bars representing 42 years' Army service. The drum-major (Sergeant A. H. Blackler) also has the Army Efficiency Medal. The band’s members have more of these medals than any other sub-unit of the New Zealand Army. Two have been awarded the M.B.E. Allied to the Queen s Own Buffs (the Royal Kent Regiment), the Canterbury Regiment has the same regimental quick march, “A Hundred Pipers.'* The regimental slow march is “Greensleeves,” traditionally played when the Sovereign inspects troops. It was played by the band when Queen Elizabeth visited Burnham in 1954, and the regiment obtained the approval of the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall, London, to adopt it officially shortly afterwards. The scarlet jackets of the band’s dress uniform are traditional for infantry of the line.