DANCE BAND IN LAMSDORF

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30342, 18 January 1964, Page 9

DANCE BAND IN LAMSDORF

[From the London Correspondent of "The Press"! TJEHIND and beneath the bearskin in the photograph are the features of Captain J. H. Howe, aged 46, director of music, Scotts Guards, who is leading the 64 musicians and pipers of the regiment on their tour of Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand.

Captain Howe is not a Scot He is from Penshaw. Durban), but back in 1933 he joined the Royal Scots as a band-boy, playing with this regimental band until the outbreak of war. He was captured and made a prisoner-of-war of the Germans in 1940, but a year later, with instruments given by the Red Cross, he formed a highly-successful dance orchestra in Stalag VIIIB. Lamsdorf. The orchestra maintained the morale of prisoners and in tours of working-party areas visited in 1942 and 1943 places from. Berlin to Poland Mostly the music was transcribed from gramophone records, though the band in its concerts also featured many special arrangements. Captain Howe, who has been playing the piano and cornet since the age of nine, commenced the bandmaster course at Kneller Hall Royal Military School of Music in September, 1945, while serving again with the Royal Scots. After winning prizes for the best brass band composition and military band arranging in his class, he was appointed in 1949 bandmaster to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. commencing duty in Hong Kong. Tours of Britain, Germany,

and Finland, and a visit to British Guiana were made by the band under his direction. Appointed instructor to the Highland Brigade Junior Musicians Wing at Aberdeen in 1958, he was responsible for the training of 50 boys. On the retirement of Lieu-tenant-Colonel S. Rhodes, he was, in 1959, appointed director of music, Scots Guards, commissioned as lieutenant, and promoted captain in 1961.