Boy Entrant; The Recollections of a Royal Air Force Brat

by Brian Carlin

  “No,” I replied, half expecting to be told that I couldn’t join, because I still did not truly believe what Birchy had been telling me.

  “Well, you’ll have to learn quickly—we’re going to Earls Court in June,” responded Davison.

  “I’ll try,” I said, smiling and nodding enthusiastically, both at the same time, but hardly believing what I was hearing.

  “C’mon then. Let’s get you fixed up with a trumpet, so that you can start practising right away.”

  As he said this, the Trumpet Major turned and walked towards a storeroom, motioning that I should follow him. I eagerly shadowed him to the storeroom and was soon holding my very own brass trumpet. This, I thought, will be my passport to London and will give me freedom from future button inspections. Although thrilled to get the trumpet, I had to admit to myself that as a musical instrument it had seen much better days. The large flared end looked as though it had been pushed very hard up against something solid, which gave it a crumpled appearance instead of the smoothly curved belled-out shape that one usually associates with a trumpet. In fact, dents covered most of the entire trumpet body. It was also in dire need of an energetic application of Brasso to replace its dull, thick patina with a brassy gleam more in keeping with its military duties.

  The type of trumpet used in Boy Entrant bands was an E-flat cavalry trumpet, which is a very simple “straight through” type of instrument, lacking the valves that are apparent on trumpets used by professional musicians. The instrument consists simply of two elongated loops of brass tube with one end holding the mouthpiece and the other end flared out into the familiar “trumpet” shape. When being played, the trumpet was grasped in the right hand, around and halfway along the upper elongated part of the loop. The other arm remained at the player’s side when he was standing still, or was activated in a normal swinging motion when marching. A rope-like binding, consisting of interwoven strands of red and gold coloured fibres, was wound tightly around and along the whole length of the lower elongated part of the loop. Two large tassels, one at the beginning and one at the ending of the binding, hung below the trumpet when it was being held in the playing position.

  “Here, you’ll need this too,” said Trumpet Major Davison, as he handed me a silver mouthpiece. “Always take the mouthpiece out and keep it with you when you’re not playing or marching in the band, because it’ll get stolen if you don’t,” he warned. “Okay, you can go and start practising now,” he said, giving a small wave of his hand in a gesture of dismissal.

  I tried a practice blow, but nothing came out of the trumpet end except the sound of my breath. That came as something of a surprise. I’d been expecting to make some kind of trumpet noise, remembering how toy bugles made noise just by blowing into them when I was a child. Feeling a little defeated, I found John Birch again and asked him to show me how to play. Birchy removed the mouthpiece from his trumpet and blew into it, making a kind of squawking noise.

  “You have to do it like that,” he said. “You kind of spit into it at first to get it started, then keep it going, although you don’t actually spit spit, if you know what I mean.”

  I wasn’t quite sure what he meant about not actually spitting, but went along with it as though I did.

  He continued, “Then, every time you need to take a breath, you have to spit again to get it started.”

  I put the trumpet to my lips and spat into it. Nothing much happened.

  “No, you have to tighten your lips. Like this,” and he grimaced with his lips pulled tightly against his teeth.

  I tried again and managed a few pathetic squawks. Feeling a little more confident now, I asked, “How do you make the different notes?”

  “You change the shape of your lips,” he explained. “Tighten them for the higher notes and looser for the low notes. Go on, give it a try,” he urged.

  I tried, but not too successfully. This wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. There was going to be a lot of practise ahead before I would be able to make any kind of useful contribution, but I enjoyed being in the band and especially the more relaxed discipline that surrounded it. Now I was able to come into class with Birchy, instead of having to march in separately with the others under the control of dour-faced Willie Burns. Likewise, we were able to leave by ourselves when classes were finished and make our way to where the band formed up. Although these might seem like small freedoms, they were well worth having in our rigidly disciplined world.

  In addition to achieving the knack of playing a trumpet, there were lots of other things I needed to learn as a band member. Leading Boy Entrant Featherstone was the Drum Major. He led the band by striding out in front, cradling the four-foot long, silver-capped mace in his right arm. Whilst marching, we would periodically strike up with a tune from our repertoire, requiring the participation of all trumpeters and drummers. Between tunes, the trumpets and drums were silent, except for the bass drummer who continued to beat out the step on his drum with a single drumstick.

  When Featherstone wanted us to commence playing a new tune, he took hold of the mace by its bottom end and held it vertically above his head, with his arm stretched upwards as far as he could reach. This was the signal for the side tenor drummers to play a series of drum-rolls they called “two threes and a seven”, drrr-drrr-dit, drrr-drrr-dit, drrr-drrr-drrr-drrr-drrr-drrr-dit. Up to this point, each trumpet player carried his trumpet tucked under his right upper arm, with his right hand grasped around the forward-facing mouthpiece. The first short set of drum-rolls was the signal to swivel the right hand around to grasp the instrument in the playing position. At the second set of drum-rolls, the trumpet arm was extended horizontally forward with the mouthpiece pointed upwards. At this point, the Trumpet Major in the rear rank, where he marched with the better trumpet players, would yell out the name of the tune we were supposed to play. At the final and longest set of drum-rolls, the trumpet was brought to the lips and we then waited for the end of the final drum roll as the signal to start playing. In the early stages of my band service, however, “playing” was little more than making discordant squawking noises as I grappled with the task of trying to coax the right notes from my trumpet.

  There was no sheet music to play from, even if we had known how to read it—the music was all learned by ear. One of our tunes was known as “The Marseillaise”, which had a passing resemblance to the French national anthem. Then there was “The St. Louis Blues”. Around that time, the United States Air Force Band had recorded a swinging version of this famous tune, which was very popular on the camp “radio” system. We tried to emulate it, but could never quite match the quality of the USAF band’s performance. One other tune that comes to mind is “Roll me Over in the Clover”, which was abbreviated just to “Roll me Over” when its name was yelled out by the Trumpet Major.

  Drum Major Featherstone invariably contributed his own virtuoso performance with the mace. Much of the time, he would use it to indicate the change in direction when we needed to make a turn, or to signal other visual commands to those of us following behind him. But when he wasn’t doing this, he twirled the mace around in front and behind his back, sometimes tossing it in the air and then catching it, in much the same tradition as Scottish regimental pipe-band drum majors.

  There was usually time for only one tune in the short distance between the billets and the workshops. After having played it, we each tucked our trumpets back under our arms and continued to march along in silence, save for the sound of the bass drum beating out the step. When Featherstone needed to bring us to a halt, he lifted the mace horizontally above his head and held it there between his two outstretched arms. At the same time, he commenced marking time by marching on the spot and then we proceeded to do likewise. All the while, the bass drum continued to beat out the step until Featherstone raised the mace by one hand, into a vertical position above his head, grasping it by the silver ferrule that encased its lower few inches. He then jerked it rapidly in a few short, horizontal movement
s. The bass drummer audibly mimicked these movements by beating out a rhythm of two double beats, two single beats and one final double beat, boom-boom, boom-boom, boom, boom, boom-boom! On the final double beat, the band stopped marking time and came to a halt. Featherstone then abruptly let go of the mace and allowed it to drop vertically, only to catch it neatly in the cradle of his right arm before performing an about-turn to face us and dismiss us to our classes.

  Rehearsals for the Royal Tournament started almost as soon as I joined the band. The bands of both 1 and 2 Wings were combined into a single massed unit and arrayed in eight columns instead of the usual four. This was the formation in which we would represent St. Athan at the tournament. Twice weekly, on Mondays and Wednesdays after tea, band members were assembled on the parade ground to practise the figure marching routine that we would eventually perform at the show, under the direction of the band officer, Pilot Officer Read and instructor Corporal Naylor.

  Corporal Naylor had felt inspired to develop the routine whilst watching a chorus girl routine on the “Sunday Night at the London Palladium” television programme. He didn’t exactly want us to perform high kicks, but was impressed by the fluid formation changes that were part of the chorus girls’ performance. This inspired him to develop a figure-marching routine that would continuously change as we marched, without any verbal or visual commands being given. Unfortunately for him, we weren’t the London Palladium chorus line and so our early attempts at figure marching predictably degenerated into chaos. The good corporal and Pilot Officer Read must each have been tearing their hair out as they watched us stumble around, crash into one another, or fail to make turns when we were supposed to. But after a few practice sessions we started to get the hang of the routine and before long were fine-tuning and polishing it to perfection.

  When we had achieved a reasonable level of competence, an area of the parade ground was marked out to mimic the boundaries of the Earls Court arena in which we would be performing. We began the figure-marching routine as soon as we entered this mock arena, led by three drum majors, with Featherstone out in front as the main leader and the other two drum majors just a few steps behind him. I’m not sure how it came about that we had three drum majors when there were only two bands, but when we initially marched into the arena area, they formed the three points of a broad triangular pattern, with Featherstone at its apex. The two secondary drum majors synchronized their mace twirling movements with those of Featherstone as they marched along the length of the mock arena. Then, when Featherstone neared the opposite end, he doubled back and started threading his way through the ranks of the other marchers, who were still heading in the original direction. Each of us continued marching until we also reached the same turning point, whereupon we too doubled back, until eventually the whole band was marching in the opposite direction. We performed this manoeuvre once more at the other end of the “arena” and then headed back in the original direction. But this time, when we got to the centre of the arena, the four inner ranks performed a marching about-turn and emerged from the rear of the formation, going in the opposite direction. No sooner had the original formation developed into two separate formations, than the two outer ranks of each formation started splitting off at a tangent so that were all heading in separate directions, towards the four corners of the arena. While this was going on, the marchers in the remaining four inner ranks marked time until the tail ends of the outer columns drew level with them, then each of these ranks joined on to the end of an outer column so that now four single columns of marchers were heading towards the four corners of the arena.

  The break-up of the original tight formation into four separate columns was the first part of Corporal Naylor’s choreographed routine that included many variations of counter marching, figure of eights and crossovers that flowed into and out of one another so that the patterns continuously changed throughout the routine. The piece de resistance came when we formed a giant Boy Entrant wheel badge with the bass drummer at its centre, which stretched from one edge of the arena to the other and slowly rotated. Finally and seamlessly, we would then resume the original eight-rank formation before marching out of the arena area. Corporal Naylor did a truly magnificent job of coaching us in the performance of the whole routine. As originally envisaged, it was executed with only one command being given at the beginning and nothing more until the final halt was given on our exit from the arena.

  At first, we concentrated on learning the figure marching routine, but as our grasp of the intricate movements improved we were required to start playing our band instruments as well. This added a new challenge to grapple with, because it was now necessary to concentrate on what we were playing in addition to maintaining our position in the formation.

  Meanwhile, the band continued to lead the daily parade to and from workshops, which helped me to get some desperately needed practise towards elevating my trumpet-playing to at least a basic level of competency, before going to the Royal Tournament. It was a slow process, but I was progressing nicely and all would have been well if I hadn’t suddenly been promoted to Corporal Trumpeter.

  Earning a “band rank” was a difficult undertaking, even though it had standing only within the band. There were four ranks above that of basic trumpeter: Leading Trumpeter; Corporal Trumpeter; Sergeant Trumpeter; and Trumpet Major, which was the highest attainable. Rank was indicated by inverted chevrons on the right cuff of the person’s tunic, surmounted by the small brass badge in the shape of crossed-trumpets. It was the same badge that ordinary trumpeters wore on their upper left arm. Actual rank was denoted by the number of chevrons: one for Leading Trumpeter, two for Corporal, three for Sergeant and four for Trumpet Major. A candidate for promotion to any of these ranks was required to demonstrate his ability to play the trumpet—during a “play-off” before a committee of higher-ranking trumpeters—at a level of competency that was deemed the minimum for that particular rank. As with promotion to normal ranks, it was usually a prerequisite that a candidate would be promoted one rank at a time and only after he had spent a reasonable amount of time in his current rank. Considering all of this, it might be difficult to imagine how someone like me, who had only recently joined the band and could only hit the right notes more by accident than intention, could possibly receive a sudden promotion to the rank of Corporal Trumpeter, whilst conveniently leapfrogging the intervening rank of Leading Trumpeter in the process. Well, it had nothing whatsoever to do with my ability to play the trumpet and more to do with the overall appearance of the band—a case of fluff without substance, conceived to create a certain visual imagery.

  It seemed that Pilot Officer Read, while doing his homework on military bands, had noticed an abundance of decoration on most other “professional” bandsmen’s uniforms. This translated to lots of braid, stripes, badges and all manner of uniform decoration that gave the appearance of overdone icing on a fancy cake. He had also noticed that there was always a cadre of senior bandsmen populating the rear two or three ranks of every “proper” band. The uniform sleeves of these rear-rankers were heavily adorned with stripes, badges and insignia, whereas the other bandsmen were progressively less and less heavily festooned the further the eye travelled forward through their ranks.

  Pilot Officer Read desired to impress our potential audience with a similar make-up of obviously senior band members in the rear ranks, to make us appear more like “pros”. Unfortunately, there were hardly enough band members endowed with the necessary sleeve decoration to make up even one paltry rank. Our officer therefore conceived the idea of awarding temporary seniority to some of his boys, sufficient to make up a number of complete ranks of “senior” members. I had already been automatically assigned to march in the third row from rear, by the “sizing” process, and now Pilot Officer Read decided to populate this row exclusively with Corporal Trumpeters. The row behind mine was to be made up of Sergeant Trumpeters and the last row would be a mixture of Sergeant Trumpeters and the two Trumpet Majors, whil
st those in the row to my immediate front would all be Leading Trumpeters. All other trumpeters forward of this would hold no rank and therefore minimal arm decoration. The same rank “adjustments” were applied to the drummers, who marched in the three front ranks of the band. In this way, Pilot Officer Read aimed to richly enhance the band’s visual impact, so that it would be able to hold its own with the big boys. What he hadn’t bargained for was the human element, manifesting itself as a torrent of outrage from the band members who had actually earned their stripes the hard way—by playing off for them.

  I first learned of the new promotions during practice one evening, when Corporal Naylor handed me a chit and two sets of double chevrons. The chit informed me that I had been temporarily awarded the rank of “acting” Corporal Trumpeter and that the chevrons should be worn immediately. I was thrilled at receiving the unexpected promotion and, on my return to the billet, set about the task of sewing the new stripes onto the right cuff of both tunics. When in place, they contrasted with the single proficiency stripe on my left cuff, giving me a slightly unbalanced appearance, but that was how it had to be.

  At the next band practice, those of us who had received the windfall promotions turned up proudly wearing our new stripes, but the effect on the more senior members of the band was not quite what we expected. Although their fury was directed at Pilot Officer Read, their first action was to take it out on those of us who, in their eyes, had been undeservedly promoted. Soon after arriving, I found myself surrounded by a group of angry senior trumpeters. They cordoned me off, together with one or two other “instant” corporals and sergeant trumpeters, and half dragged, half pushed us into a quiet corner where, one by one, we were challenged to demonstrate that our playing ability matched the level required to legitimately earn our stripes.