"Noises Off” For Guards

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30369, 19 February 1964, Page 16

"Noises Off” For Guards

The Victor bomber of the Royal Air Force swept low over / the Addington Raceway yesterday afternoon as the programme of the Band of the Scots Guards was about to begin.

“We seem to have a wonderful accompaniment from the R.A.F., so we will play a piece which honours them,” ‘The Dam Busters,’” announced the director of music (Captain J. H. Howe).

The bomber swept in again, its roaring jets a perfect foil, according to Captain Howe, to the engine noises suggested by the music.

The Victor came over a third time. Captain Howe wagged a finger at it in the midst of his beat and then shook a fist. ,

As the jet noises dwindled away the older-style “Dam Busters” came into their own.

“It’s the first time we’ve ever played that with ‘noises off’ so close," said Captain Howe amid tumultuous applause. It was a happy start for a programme in which informality, versatility and sheer spectacle brought the huge crowd to its feet at the close, had the whole audience singing at times, and always won applause and cheering which would have been a credit to a trotting or a Rugby victory. . Captain Howe, from his pictures, seemed an austere man. In • fact he is the reverse. He kept the crowds in fits of laughter with his extempore wit, swung into syncopated pieces like a dance band leader, and yet made the picture of dignity for his classics from the stage and his martial music on parade. The afternoon offering was varied in the extreme. It moved from “In a Quiet Mood” (a carillon for cornets) to the popular melodies of “My Fair Lady” and on to “There’s Going to be a Hot Time for the Brasses Tonight,” a piece which Cap-

tain Howe said would be the envy of the Beatles. The first half ended with “A Highland Patrol." distant music at first, rising to a crescendo, and then fading away as musicians left the stage in turn until the director was left alone with a solitary instrument. In all this the crowds were enthralled with the sweetness of music produced by finely-balanced brass (including trombones), woodwinds, and lively percussion. The pipes and drums of the Ist Battlion received tremendous ovations for their music and marching, as did the four skilled dancers in a sword dance and Highland Fling

But what most of the crowd had come for was the second hour of manoeuvres on the trotting track, although they wished it could have been on the green. The military and pipe bands, with running commentary, performed (in compressed form) all the drills and music of the Trooping of the Colour on the Queen’s Birthday, normally executed by the 1000-strong Brigade of Guards.

There was inspection music, slow and quick marches for “the troop," the drummer's call, the general salute, the parade through the ranks in slow time, and then the massed march past, a splendid spectacle.

Few will forget the closing minutes with the brass and pipes playing “Skye Boat Song" and other numbers with beautiful effect; the audience of 5000 joining the band in “Now is the Hour," and "God Save the Queen" played by the Band of Her Majesty’s Own Scots Guards.