LOOKING BACK extra - September 13, 2018 edition

Long Lawford School Band

Kenneth Owen is writing a book about the ‘Brass Bands of Warwickshire’ and hopes Memory Lane readers can help provide him with a better quality version of this 1979 Advertiser photograph of Long Lawford School Band to include in it.

It was published on January 4 1980, six months after the band had formed, after a lapse of more than 30 years for the village. If you have a copy, please get in touch.

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In the background is Mr TD Griffiths, headmaster of the school and Gary Smallwood, deputy headmaster and band trainer and conductor. The band performed regularly at the school and village fetes and the annual community outdoor church service. The band and St Andrew’s School Steel Band were also two of the attractions at Long Lawford village fete on Saturday, July 9 1983. The band also gave many performances at Church Lawford village fete, the bandstand in Caldecott Park, and joint concerts with Rugby Music Centre in the Temple Speech Room. At one point it had over 30 members, all pupils at the school or others in the area.

But when individual music lessons in schools no longer continued to be free, fewer pupils took up playing and along with staff changes, membership of the band began to decline and it finished in the late 1980s.